(Nice Dream): The Gaps In Between
by ShirouHokuto
Summary: Side stories for the AU "Nice Dream," to fill things out a bit and give me a break from Sasuke. Various ratings, characters, and genres.
1. if I don't pay the ransom

**Author's Note:** _Because the main story wasn't devouring enough of my attention, apparently, I just had to start writing side stories to fill in some blanks and give me a break from Sasuke's POV. I'll probably alternate posting them with chapters of the main story and they'll all be here, so please follow this story if you're interested!_

_And to start us off right, I present: ITACHI ANGST. :D ... what do you mean there's such a thing as too much Itachi angst, LIES AND LIBEL.  
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><p><strong>if I don't pay the ransom<strong>

It was the twenty-second day since he had refused Madara, and Itachi began it the same way he had begun the other twenty-one days; he got up well before dawn to train.

The apartment blocks set aside for ANBU and special jounin had a good-sized training ground close by, but they were usually in use in the morning, so he went across the village to one of the grounds on the other side of the river. He only worked out for about an hour; then the shinobi who practiced there regularly began to show up, eying him as they started their exercises, and it was time to go back to the apartment and make breakfast.

He had been making the same meal for twenty-one days: rice, miso, and leftovers, with enough extra rice to make rice balls for Sasuke's lunch.

(Sasuke loved rice balls. It was natural to make them. It wasn't foolish to make them twenty-two days in a row in case this was the day Sasuke wouldn't throw the whole lunch away as soon as he was out of the apartment building.)

The door to Sasuke's room opened just as Itachi was about to knock and make sure Sasuke was awake. Sasuke was already dressed and had his backpack on; he flinched when he saw Itachi, and Itachi stepped back and said, "Breakfast is ready."

Sasuke looked down, his shoulders hunched up, and went past Itachi, heading for the apartment door. Itachi didn't touch him. He said, "You should eat before you leave. And I haven't finished making your lunch..."

"'m not hungry," Sasuke mumbled, the same thing he had said for the last six days. For fourteen days before that he hadn't said anything at all within Itachi's hearing.

"At least have a little rice," Itachi said, reaching for the half-filled bento, but he moved too quickly and Sasuke bolted out the door.

For the twenty-second day in a row, Itachi ate breakfast by himself.

He wasn't on official leave, but he didn't have a team at the moment and his superiors had let him know that he didn't need to come into headquarters unless they summoned him. After he took care of the dishes, he left for headquarters anyway; perhaps he could find someone else off-duty to spar with, or take a security shift.

He passed by the apartment below theirs - it belonged to a special jounin named Mitarashi Anko, if he remembered correctly - and saw the woman herself leaning against her door, eating dango. She waved her free hand at him and said, "Yo."

"Good morning, Mitarashi-san," Itachi said.

"Just Anko's fine," she said. "So you're still alive? You should watch some TV or something, yanno. It's so quiet up there I was gonna call in a biohazard team to make sure you two weren't rotting away."

"I'll - consider it," said Itachi, wondering if this was her way of showing concern. Anko stared at him for a minute, swallowing another dango, then snorted and said, "Oh, get outta here, I'm sick of looking at your stupid mopey face."

Itachi went.

Headquarters was practically empty, which was partly Itachi's fault; besides the increased security in the village, most of the active teams had been sent out to hunt for Madara and any possible allies or hiding places. The few ANBU still there knew Itachi's mask and avoided him, except for a girl with a short black jacket and a bear mask who shadowed him through the building. Danzo did like to keep an eye on him.

Commander Daruma's shoulders slumped when he recognized Itachi at the door to his office, but he was gracious enough about assigning Itachi to sort through a pile of potentially hazardous items brought in from missions. The ANBU in the bear mask followed him there, too; he could sense her lurking among the shelves of summon scrolls.

Briefly, he considered asking her whether he really looked "mopey" - he didn't want to show Sasuke an unhappy face right now - but remembered in time that his mask was on. Foolish. He had been forgetting obvious little details like that lately; it was a dangerous habit, he would have to take more care when he was officially active again.

Itachi activated his sharingan and carefully unwrapped the first item, and the bloody hilt of an ANBU katana doubled before his eyes. He preferred as clean a kill as possible, but it was difficult to control the blood splatter of a katana strike and by the time he had reached Mother and Father he had run out of kunai and he had cleaned his katana every day since that night but the hilt had already been -

He shut his eyes, shut off the sharingan, looked at the katana again. Of course it wasn't his; his sword was in his locker, he didn't make a habit of carrying it around headquarters, and the pattern of the stains was different. There was nothing special about his katana, anyway. It was no more potentially hazardous than any other sword.

He reactivated the sharingan and resumed the inspection of the katana that wasn't his.

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><p>Itachi was writing a warning label for a fan with a genjutsu trap when he felt the other ANBU's chakra signature disappear. He finished the label, placed it on the fan's box, and left the room; if there was trouble, he would be needed. Outside of the storage room, however, headquarters was quiet, and another ANBU in a black jacket and a swallow mask was just coming down the hall. No trouble, then; just a shift change for Danzo's eyes.<p>

That reminded him that he should eat. He'd brought the bento he had made for Sasuke so that it wouldn't be wasted; he retrieved it and left headquarters, preferring not to eat with Root watching every bite. He found a bench in a shady spot not far from the Academy, but removed enough from the sidewalk that he would be undisturbed, and began to eat. He wasn't particularly hungry, but it was important to keep up his strength. Curious, though, how tasteless the food seemed; he was sure he'd seasoned everything properly this morning...

As he picked up one of the rice balls, indistinct shouting from the Academy drew his attention, and he saw smoke explode out of a classroom window.

Itachi vanished.

No sword, only a few kunai and shuriken, avoid a head-on attack; get Madara's attention, draw him away from the school before he could find Sasuke, get him out of Konoha and then - and then -

He ran through the Academy (not that room, not that one, there it was, smoke and dust billowing into the hall from the doorway) and the mangekyou spun, focused on two shapes in the smoke - a yelling chuunin and a student.

"- _ever_ catch you messing with the exploding tags again - what are you trying to do, you little monster, kill us all?"

"I was just seein' what would happen, yanno! I didn't mean to -"

Not Madara. Not Madara. Just a mischievous student causing trouble. Itachi put a hand on the wall and forced the mangekyou away. Not Madara. Not yet.

"Excuse me, ANBU-san - can I help you?"

Itachi looked up and saw the chuunin teacher looking at him warily. ANBU-san - yes, he'd put away his mask, but he was still in uniform. Foolish. He should have changed before he left headquarters. "Please forgive me," he said, "I saw the explosion and came to investigate, but I see that you have matters under control."

"Yes, well, thanks for checking," said the teacher. "No one's hurt, but this brat just can't resist anything that makes noise." She shot the student a filthy glare. "Can't believe they let _him_ of all -"

"Hey, mister, you okay?" the boy interrupted. He appeared to be around Sasuke's age, with short, scruffy blonde hair and blue eyes shining out of a sooty face.

"I'm fine, thank you," Itachi said automatically.

"Only your eyes were all weird and red, and you look kinda -"

The teacher's eyes widened at "red." She had heard of him, then. "That's enough, Uzumaki," she said, grabbing the boy's shoulder and pulling him away from Itachi. "Don't pester Itachi-san, he's - very busy, I'm sure."

"Yeah, sorry," Uzumaki said, although he didn't look very sorry and grinned up at Itachi, waving. "See ya, mister! Good luck bein' busy!"

Itachi made himself smile and raised his hand for a return wave. "Please study hard, Uzumaki-kun," he said, wondering vaguely where he'd heard that name before. "And don't cause too much trouble for your teachers."

The teacher dragged the boy back to class, and Itachi resisted the urge to check on Sasuke and made his way out of the building, back to his abandoned lunch. He must have been careless when he had put it down (he didn't remember putting it down), because it had fallen off the bench and spilled on the ground. He knelt down to clean it up and wondered how he had eaten any of it; it looked disgusting, smelled disgusting, of course Sasuke wouldn't have wanted such a terrible bento.

He picked up what had spilled and emptied the whole thing into the nearest trash can, then went back to headquarters. He still had work to do.

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><p>Hana came by the storage room late in the afternoon to tell Itachi that he could go, she would finish checking the remaining items. It wasn't really a job Hana was suited for, as she usually worked on reconnaissance and short-term spying missions, but she had been on medical leave for a month due to injuries from her last mission and took desk jobs whenever she came in.<p>

As he was leaving she said, "Oh, and it'll be Captain Hana soon - the promotion goes through soon as my leave is up."

"Congratulations, Captain Hana," he said.

"Don't lay it on too thick," said Hana, shuffling the pile of weapons and miscellaneous objects around to better accommodate her injured right arm. "Still a few years behind the genius captain, aren't I?"

Itachi tensed. "I didn't mean -"

"Oh, I know," she said, sighing. "Look, just forget I said anything. Get out of here and get some rest, Crow. They're going to want you back out in the field soon enough, you should be relaxing while you have the chance."

Itachi wasn't sure what she meant by that, but he nodded politely and left.

He had done laundry four days ago, swept yesterday, and he took care of the dishes every day, so he had nothing to do at the apartment; he did need to get groceries, though, or he wouldn't be able to make a decent dinner for Sasuke. The meat and eggs weren't a problem, but the woman who sold vegetables near the ANBU apartments ignored him when he tried to buy tomatoes and an onion, until the people who elbowed in around him had bought up all the ones that weren't bruised or overripe. He tried another market on the other side of the village, but the man who ran the vegetable stall there named a price for the tomatoes that was twice what was written on the sign in the box.

Itachi paid it, because it was getting late and he didn't know any other vegetable stalls. He still made it back to the apartment before Sasuke, as he usually did, and was halfway through preparing dinner when he realized that he was making oyakodon.

There was nothing wrong with that. It was so normal that it was silly and there was no reason to think anything of it except the name and Itachi took the simmering chicken off the stove and sat down on the kitchen floor and took several very deep breaths. He was not going to start laughing uncontrollably because he was making oyakodon and he had killed his parents twenty-two days ago. That would be ridiculous, so it wasn't going to happen. He had responsibilities. He had to take care of Sasuke.

He stood up and returned the pan to the stove, and was slicing the onion and tomatoes when he heard the door open. He looked over his shoulder and said, "Welcome home, Sasuke. I'll be done with dinner soon..."

Sasuke didn't answer, keeping his head down as he took off his shoes. Itachi added the sliced onion to the skillet, decided to add the tomatoes a minute later so they wouldn't be overcooked, and turned around to talk to Sasuke properly. "How was school today?" he asked. "Do you have much homework?"

Sasuke shrugged and stayed silent; with his face set in a stubborn expression like that he looked like Father, although Father's stubbornness had never been mixed with fear.

(He hadn't wanted to kill Father. He loved his family. But that foolish man who couldn't compromise, who would have torn Konoha apart for his pride and let war destroy his own home - Itachi had hated him.)

It had been a minute, so Itachi tipped the tomatoes into the soup mix, fighting to keep his hands steady, and stirred it. He heard Sasuke slip past him and mutter, "I ate already," and then the door to Sasuke's room closing.

For the twenty-second day in a row, Itachi ate dinner by himself, as well. Not much dinner, though; he still didn't feel hungry, and it was hard to eat the oyakodon without wanting to laugh again. After a few bites he gave up, covered both bowls, and put them in the refrigerator. He might as well begin his evening training.

He knocked on Sasuke's door first, and Sasuke yelled, "Don't come in!", his voice high and panicked.

"I won't," said Itachi. "If you get hungry later, the leftovers are in the fridge. I'm going out to train, I'll be back later - don't forget to do your homework."

After a minute of silence, Itachi accepted the lack of answer and went out. He made sure that both the door and the kitchen window were locked, checking each three times, and then went to the practice grounds near the apartments; most ANBU trained in the mornings and it was generally empty at night, so Itachi could train as long as he wanted. The physical effort was relaxing at first, keeping him occupied with aim and distance and motion. All he had to think about were the targets and the weapons, nothing else...

After a while he took a short break for water and to consider his next exercises. He shouldn't neglect his taijutsu, but that was best practiced with a partner - perhaps sword kata, he could do those alone, and the moon was growing full again.

Itachi watched it. If the moon was already up - and well above the horizon, too - then it was later than he'd thought. Perhaps he should go back and try to sleep, but he didn't feel tired yet, and he couldn't let himself slack off when -

Movement and he drew and threw and a hand shot out of the darkness, catching the kunai just above a startled green snake.

"Watch it, hotshot," Mitarashi Anko said, and scooped the snake up; it wrapped itself around her neck and shoulders and buried its head in the collar of her coat. "You're not the only one who likes training at night, yanno?"

"My apologies, Anko-san," he said, catching his kunai as she tossed it back to him. "I was only -" He didn't know. He should have looked before throwing. "I've been a little - on edge, lately," which should be safe enough to admit. She was only a special jounin and he barely knew her; certainly she couldn't know about Madara.

"Nah, really," she said. "Never would've guessed. Look, Uchiha -"

"Just Itachi is fine." He wasn't an Uchiha anymore. Sasuke was the last Uchiha.

"Gotcha," said Anko. "Anyway, if you're free around three tomorrow, stop by and have tea with me. You look like hell warmed over, you should relax a bit - and I make some damned relaxing tea."

Itachi considered this offer carefully before saying, "That's very kind of you, Anko-san."

"Kind my ass," she said, but she was grinning. Her smile reminded him of Uzumaki's, though he couldn't have said why. "I just hate dealing with the biohazard teams and their bullshit procedures, so you better not keel over and die from stress, got it?"

"Understood," Itachi said.

They split up the practice ground, Anko taking half to work with the snake while Itachi ran through sword kata; it was rather pleasant to share a training ground with someone who didn't look at him as if he were about to start killing everyone in sight, and Itachi soon lost track of time again.

Then Anko planted a needle in the katana's hilt and told him that it was past a good ANBU's bedtime. Itachi was beginning to feel tired, and when he pulled the needle out to return to her he noticed that his fingers had difficulty gripping it.

Anko didn't notice, or perhaps didn't care; she just said, "See you tomorrow, bring your own snacks," and waved him off with that wide grin.

The apartment was undisturbed when he got back, but when he went to wash the dishes from dinner he found an extra bowl in the sink, sloppily rinsed and with shreds of egg and onion still clinging to the inside.

It was ridiculous and it meant more work, but it made Itachi feel a little less tired. He could handle this, he thought as he filled the sink with hot water; it was all right if Sasuke avoided him, he could understand it, it didn't matter as long as Sasuke was safe. Itachi didn't need anything more than that.

After he had finished cleaning up, he leaned against his little brother's door and said quietly, "Good night, Sasuke," and then he went to bed. The alarm clock read 1:37, turning over to 1:38 just before Itachi closed his eyes.

It read 2:09 when he woke up and had to go through the entire apartment to make sure no one else was there, but at least Sasuke didn't wake up when Itachi checked his room.

It read 3:28 when Itachi woke up again, but he wasn't quite sure how to deal with a dream where his mother had screamed at him to cut his hair short, so he went back to sleep.

It read 4:30 when he woke up properly on the twenty-third day since he had refused Madara, and Itachi got up to train.


	2. Recruitment

**Author's Note: **_This was actually the first side story I wrote, so it's a bit - well, not my best work, really, but I still kind of like it if only because YAY ANKO. Everything needs more Anko!_

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><p><strong>Recruitment<strong>

It was all because she'd forgotten to look for her seal first.

If Murasaki had remembered to get the seal before she sat down to write the letter, then she wouldn't have had to get up and look for it, and if she hadn't had to get up and look for it, then there wouldn't have been time for someone to knock on the door just as she lifted the seal from the letter.

As it was, she got up with the letter in hand and went to answer the door.

"Yo," Mitarashi Anko said, giving her a little wave.

Murasaki inspected her thoroughly, but couldn't spot any signs that it was a transformation jutsu or some other trick; she said, "Well, this is a shock - I thought you'd been too busy lately with your baby boyfriend to socialize."

"Oh, shut it," Anko said, but with a smile. "He's not _that_ young, and you know everyone's busy now, ANBU or not..." She glanced down at the letter - Murasaki quickly vanished it up the sleeve of her jacket - and the smile faded. "And you're going to join the nots, huh?"

"Yes, well," said Murasaki. She shrugged and ran her fingers through her rough black hair in the ever-futile effort to smooth out some of the frizz. "With work the way it is, I just haven't had time to concentrate on my _real_ job..."

Anko said, "Bullshit, Sei-chan. You always said you got the best ideas when you were out in the field and up to your neck in missions - what the hell's different now?"

"The pressure's just been getting to me recently," Murasaki said, leaning out of the door to look past Anko as if she were checking the weather; barely moving her lips, she whispered, "Root."

"Well, damn," Anko said, as if she hadn't heard, "I was kind of hoping - guess it doesn't matter now. Still, if you're just going to quit anyway, think you could spare the time to get lunch?" She stretched, cracked her knuckles, and let her hands fall casually into the Horse seal. "There's that great place near the hot springs we used to go to..."

"I remember it." Sei stepped back inside her apartment. "Meet you there in ten minutes? I have a manuscript I need to drop off, too."

"Sure thing, see ya in ten," said Anko, her grin reappearing, and she vanished.

Eleven minutes later Murasaki jumped down from the trees and balanced on one of the fence-posts surrounding the paddock. The horses within, accustomed to sudden shinobi appearances, paid her no attention.

"You're late, yanno," Anko said. She was leaning on the next post along the fence and watching the horses. "Maybe it's time for you to retire after all, huh?"

"I told you I had a manuscript to turn in," Sei said, gracefully stepping down from the post. "Don't make me kill you off in the next one."

"Yeah, yeah, you always say that," said Anko, waving the threat off. "What's this one about? Monster stories again, or -"

"Enough, Anko," Sei said. "I know you didn't drop by just to say hello, or we'd be getting lunch now. What do you want?"

"I'm trying to put a team together for Itachi."

Sei rolled her eyes. She should've known; she'd been waiting for years now for Anko to get over Orochimaru and fall for someone else hard enough to be obnoxious about it, although Sei had been convinced it would be Kurenai. "Not a chance," she said. "I'm not interested in babysitting your boyfriend - he's more than capable of looking after himself, from what I've heard. I'm getting out of ANBU while I can; maybe you should tell him to do the same."

"It's not just about him, okay?" Anko snapped, standing up from her slouch. "This is about Konoha, too! You said 'Root' - you're quitting because of them, aren't you?"

"If you were in ANBU, so would you," Sei said, and had to make a conscious effort to keep her voice down, which only irritated her more. "I'm not some rookie with a head full of Academy ideals, but there's something off about them and I don't like it. And they've been getting more and more involved - perfectly good teams are getting split up so they can squeeze in a Root member, and the Hokage can't do a thing about it when we can barely handle the number of missions as it is. It's not the same ANBU, and I don't want any part of it."

Anko's eyes narrowed. "So you're just gonna give up and let the assholes win?"

"I won't help split ANBU when things are this bad and getting worse," Murasaki said.

"Then don't," Anko said, leaning in closer to her. "Look, Sei-chan, I'm not saying you should start a rebellion or something, but you're not gonna change things if you just run away, and I know you know that." She hesitated - well, that wasn't like Anko at all - and then said, "That's the only reason Itachi's still here. Well, and his bratty little brother, but mostly because he knows there's crap going down, and leaving ANBU won't fix it."

"I've already told you, I'm not interested in taking care of your boyfriend -"

"And I already said this isn't about taking care of him!" Anko shouted. "This is about protecting Konoha from the Root, don't you get it? Danzo's trying to get his followers into power, he's trying to get himself into power, and is that the kind of Konoha you want to live in? No one else has the guts to go against Root, it's just Itachi, and he can't do much just working on his own and getting sent on solo missions all the time. If you'd rather quit than work for Konoha, fine! Just quit!"

Murasaki sighed. Honestly, this was what came of making friends with younger shinobi... "Pipe down before the whole village hears you," she said, forcing her voice lighter. "And you've got to work on that speech a bit; no one likes getting yelled into taking action, as dramatic as it is in theory, and especially not by their friends." She thought she might use it in something, though - after some tweaking, of course. "Count me in. If nothing else, sounds like it'll be good inspiration."

Anko stared at her, and then her whole face lit up. "What, seriously? You'll do it? Sei-chan, you're the best!"

"Just don't yell at me as if I were a genin again," Sei said, elbowing her. "I mean it. For that, you're paying for lunch."


	3. ANBU at Work

**Author's Note:** _Yes, I know, two side-stories in a week and no new chapter is probably pushing it a bit, but there's a reason behind it! Honest! Anyway, I quite like this one but it is mostly OCs, so if those aren't your thing, you are forgiven for giving this story a pass. XD_

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><p><strong>ANBU at Work<strong>

Hanako scowled down at the new team roster she'd gotten this morning. Damnit, she'd finally gotten used to a three-person squad, and _now_ they gave her a new person that they'd all have to adjust around? She flipped to their profile; not even a medical nin like she'd been requesting, an explosives specialist with a minor talent for summoning birds. Great.

She stalked down the hall and passed by Murasaki and Uzuki talking; she waved at them, but they didn't even look up, which only worsened her mood. True, she'd never exactly been best friends with either of them - she'd gone out drinking with Murasaki and her friend Mitarashi a couple of times, and worked with Uzuki once, that was all - but ever since they'd gotten assigned to work with that creepy Itachi kid it seemed like they had no time for anyone else in ANBU.

Hanako had other things to worry about. She grabbed her mask out of her locker, left the ANBU headquarters, and headed for the training field where her team usually met.

Momo and Ran had beaten her there; Momo was doing stretches while Ran checked his nails and said, "About time, Captain - can we finally get going on this mission?"

"Not just yet," Hanako said, and held up the new member's profile. "We've got one more to wait on, sorry."

"Oooh!" Ran said, grabbing for the profile. "Oh, please tell me it's another man, I'm so tired of playing straight for grabby old ladies -"

Momo leaned over and snatched the paperwork out from under Ran's shiny blue nails. "Looks like you're out of luck," she said, scanning the profile herself. "Miyu, sixteen, female, specializes in - what the hell, no medic again?"

"No," said Hanako, sighing. Her squad's specialties practically required a medical nin, but getting assigned one was almost impossible these days, and only four or five teams had one on permanent duty.

"And at the last minute, too," Ran said, going back to his nails. "That's going to play hell with our plans..."

"Excuse me, I appear to be late," a girl's voice said, and Miyu herself appeared out of the forest. Her face was hidden by an ANBU mask with a bird design, but the height and hair matched the profile. The profile hadn't mentioned that Miyu was exceptionally well-developed, though, and behind her own mask, Hanako burned with envy. Maybe she ought to get enhancements, like Chie had...

"Nah, we're just terminally early," Momo said, and tipped her mask up to smile at the new member. "Nice to meet you, Miyu - welcome to Team Hana."

"Oh," Miyu said, looking around at the three of them, "I thought that this was Team Fruits."

Momo looked taken aback; Hanako suppressed the urge to snap at Miyu and said, "All right, that's it for introductions, then. Momo, Ran, you know what we're doing this time; Miyu, have you been briefed, or do you need me to go over the mission with you?"

"Oh, no," said Miyu, and a shiver ran down Hanako's spine at the strangely flat tone of her voice, "I don't need to be briefed by a flat-chested tr-"

"Miyu-chaaaaaaan," Ran sang, draping an arm over the girl's shoulder, and as usual Hanako was mildly amazed at how intimidating a five-foot man with blue nails and purple streaks in his hair could be. "Why don't you travel with me, and I can tell you all about the words we don't use with each other, even affectionately."

"That's all right, I didn't mean it affec-"

"I think that's an excellent idea, Ran," Hanako said, fighting down the taste of bile in her throat. "Miyu, in a unit like ours, it's especially important to work together with as little friction as possible, and for team cohesion certain language is off-limits. We'll see you two at the rendezvous point."

Ran saluted, and disappeared with Miyu.

Hanako took a deep breath and felt Momo bump her shoulder. "Don't let her get to you, okay?" the other woman said. "She's probably just one of those Root brats everyone's getting stuck with lately, you know how they are - raised by wolves, the lot of them."

"I'm fine," Hanako said, taking another deep breath. She could deal with the words - she had for years - but it was always unpleasant, and whether Miyu was from Root or not, there was something off-putting about her. "Let's hit the road before we get any more unprofessional, all right?"

"You got it, Captain Hana," said Momo, smiling; she pulled her mask back down and they set off.

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><p>It was a four-day trip to the Land of Water, which gave Hanako and Momo plenty of time to plan their approach to Kirigakure, and even more time to worry about whether Ran and Miyu would survive each other's company, though eventually Hanako had to admit that if anyone could put up with an ill-mannered girl like Miyu, it was probably Ran. He liked to complain, but he had the highest tolerance for stupidity of any of them.<p>

They spent an additional night camped outside of Kirigakure, going through outfits and dying each other's hair: dark blue for Momo, a natural red wash for Hanako. Kiri's prejudices against bloodline limits made it unlikely that they'd run into any equivalent of Konoha's sharingan or byakugan, but for up-close-and-personal missions like theirs, genjutsu were too easy to spot and impractical. Dye was safer.

Momo went in first the next day, just ahead of a merchant's caravan, and got waved through quickly. Hanako waited for the caravan to be inspected, then casually stepped up. The guards gave her a quick look-over, and the taller of the two said, "All right, what's your business?"

"Pleasure," said Hanako, and smiled slowly.

The guard raised his eyebrows, but said, "Uh-huh - papers?"

Hanako flipped open the passport that identified her as Fujiwara Sayuri from the Land of Waves, licensed entertainer, and leaned forward slightly so the guard could get a good look.

"Right, then," the guard said, his eyes flicking down and then back up to the passport, "keep left once you're through the gate and you'll find the area you want - anywhere you shouldn't be is marked off, so pay attention to the signs and you'll be fine."

"Thank you so very much," Hanako said, smiling again. "I do hope to see you again - soon..."

She took a little time to get a feel for Kirigakure's civilian areas, noting landmarks, possible escape routes, and sake stalls that didn't look too sleazy. At one point she saw Momo going into a bath house with a crowd of giggling young women and smiled to herself; Momo's primary task for this mission was to stay out of trouble so she could get Hanako and Ran out if they needed it, and Hanako didn't see any harm in her having some fun on the side.

After Hanako had gotten her bearings, it didn't take her long to find the bar where they had planned to meet. Ran had managed to beat her there, though it took her a moment to pick him out; he'd gotten rid of the streaks in his hair and styled it to stick up straight. She didn't see Miyu with him, a bad sign, but she couldn't spot anyone in the room paying an unusual amount of attention to him, either, so she went ahead and took a seat at the bar two stools away from him.

Three drinks and some casual flirting with her neighbor to the left later, Hanako looked in Ran's direction and made a shocked face. "Excuse me, please," she said to her neighbor, "I just saw an old friend..." She waved to get Ran's attention and called out, "Mamoru! Hey, Mamoru, it's me!"

Ran looked up from his drink and feigned surprise. "Sayuri! It's been ages - what're you doing here?"

Hanako squeezed her way over to him and said, "I heard that business was good around here... But where's your sister? You two are usually inseparable."

"Oh, you know Saya," Ran said, taking a drink, "she just had to get out and explore for herself!"

Hanako laughed and said, "Sounds like Saya, all right," thinking that she would strangle Ran and Miyu both if she got the chance. Just what they needed, a team member running around on their own in Kirigakure doing who knows what and getting people's suspicions up... The minute they got back to Konoha she was going to have it out with whatever idiot had assigned Miyu to them at the last minute.

She chatted with Ran for another couple of minutes, exchanging mundane bits of invented history and a few tired old jokes, then said, "Well, I can't spend all my time sharing old stories, but it's been great catching up... We ought to meet up again some time while we're both here."

"Oh, absolutely," Ran agreed. "Saya'd love to see you again!"

"Mmm, I'm sure," said Hanako; she ran her eye over the crowd in the bar, estimating how many were checking her and Ran out, and raising her voice a little she said, "Maybe we ought to do a show or two together - for old times' sake?"

Ran smiled slowly and ran a finger around the edge of his glass. "Definitely," he said.

It was dawn by the time Ran slipped into the cheap room Hanako had rented, and Hanako was tempted to send him back out and debrief him sometime when she wasn't exhausted. Laziness; she rubbed her eyes and turned on the small radio she'd brought to cover their conversation, and asked, "Any problems?" Ran was a good sensor, he'd have a better chance of picking out eavesdroppers than she did.

He shook his head. "Nope, we're clear."

"Good," she said, "because I don't want anyone hearing me ask you why the hell Saya isn't with you!"

"Sayuri, you _have_ met her," Ran said, holding his hands up defensively. "I hate to say it, but even four days with my charming self couldn't help - if I'd brought her in with me we'd have all of Kiri down on us five minutes after she opened her mouth, and that'd be _before_ she said anything that gave us away. Don't worry, she's hiding outside the village with a short-range radio and orders to get out with our reports if anything happens to us."

Hanako relaxed a little and said, "All right - that's not a bad plan. But find a way to warn me next time, it scared the hell out of me when I saw you were the only one there. Any real data yet?"

"Not much beyond what we already knew," said Ran, taking a seat on the floor. "The Mizukage doesn't get out and socialize much -" Hanako hadn't been expecting him to; anyone with the ambition and intelligence to become a Kage usually had sufficient paranoia to stay out of the entertainment districts of a hidden village. "- and he's got plenty of guards. Can't blame him for it, even as a new face I heard a fair bit of grumbling about him."

"That fits with what I've picked up so far," Hanako said. "There are still bad feelings from that graduation exam, and his decision to side with Kumogakure against Konoha and Suna isn't popular... I heard in passing that even the Swordsmen aren't happy, but I don't have any details on that yet."

Ran stared off into space, resting his chin on his hands, and said, "If the Swordsmen aren't happy, we could -"

He yawned in the middle of the next word, and Hanako said, "We can, but after we've gotten some rest - keep Saya informed and we'll check with each other again in two days. Got it?"

"Duly noted, Sayuri," Ran said, trying to grin around another yawn, and he left.

* * *

><p>The next few days were uneventful. Hanako crossed paths with Ran once or twice, but for the most part they went after different sources of information; not that Hanako was having much luck, and she doubted Ran's was any better. The Kiri nin were a close-mouthed lot. However subtle she was, she could get little more out of them than she had on the first night, and certainly not much useful; she dutifully included every scrap of gossip in her reports, but included a note with one that said she thought a long-term undercover team might have more luck.<p>

On the fifth night, she was out drinking with a pair of jounin when she glanced up at the roofs and missed a step, stumbling into Mei. She couldn't possibly have just seen Miyu's bird mask up on the roofs, could she? Miyu was supposed to be outside Kiri, not sneaking around in the village.

Mei took her arm and said, "Don't tell me you're already drunk, Sayuri-chan! I really wanted to take you to Mika-mama's, it's such a fun place..."

"No, no, I'm fine, I just tripped," Hanako said, tacking on a giggle and looking over at Jirou to see if he'd noticed anything. He seemed to have been distracted by a busty woman calling to passers-by outside a bathhouse, but Hanako kept her guard up. When the three of them reached Mika-mama's she faked stumbling again and put a hand to her mouth as if she were going to be sick. "Oh - 'scuse me, Mei-chan, Jirou, I think I - sorry!" she said, and dashed away before they could stop her.

As soon as she was out of sight she jumped up to the roofs. She had no idea what Miyu was up to, but when in doubt she always assumed the worst; she started running for the Mizukage's tower, hoping desperately that she'd been wrong.

She caught up to Miyu two roofs later and cut off the girl's path to the tower. "What do you think you're doing here?" she whispered, glancing around for signs of anyone else on the rooftops.

"Carrying out my mission, Captain," said Miyu.

"Your mission is to stay the hell out of Kiri and send reports, not try to sneak into the Mizukage's tower!"

"Oh, I wasn't clear," Miyu said. "I meant that I'm carrying out my mission for Root."

Hanako was unarmed; there was no place to conceal a weapon from a thorough enough inspection, so she didn't bother with them when she was out on the town, but right now she really wished she had bothered anyway. She didn't like Miyu's tone at all. "Whatever it is you're doing for Root," she said, "you're under my command on this mission, and that means -"

Miyu's kunai slid into Hanako's side almost painlessly.

"- you follow _my_ orders, not -" Hanako said, and then she staggered back a step, her hand going to her side. Shit, that little monster... "What are you doing?"

"My orders from Danzo-sama take precedence, Captain," Miyu said, another kunai in hand. "I was told to let you live if possible, but if you try to stop me, I'll have to kill you."

Hanako took a shallow breath and wrapped her fingers around the kunai in her side, thankful that it didn't seem to have hit anything immediately vital. She couldn't let Miyu near the Mizukage, not without knowing what Root was planning, but how the hell was she going to stop the girl without -

"Looks like a busy night up here," a harsh male voice said, and a tall shadow rose behind Miyu, a smaller one at its side. "And I don't remember inviting any Konoha ANBU along..."

Miyu reacted instantly, turning and striking at the tall shadow's throat, but the shadow dodged and Hanako saw his face outlined by the moon. Her heart sank; this was just what they needed, one of the Seven Swordsmen catching them on the roofs.

"Zabuza-san, please allow me to take care of this inconvenience," said the smaller shadow, as Miyu sprang back and pulled out a scroll.

Zabuza reached for the hilt of his sword and said, "Nah, this won't take long."

Miyu snapped the scroll open and was biting her thumb when Hanako's fingers hit the pressure points in her neck. She collapsed onto Hanako's arm as the sword came down and Hanako blocked it with the bloody kunai she had just yanked out of her side - shit, that sword was heavy; it was cutting into the kunai, and her arms were already starting to shake trying to keep it off and support Miyu at the same time.

She shifted Miyu onto her shoulder and broke away from Zabuza, dropping the half-broken kunai; her hands flickered through seals as fast as she could form them, and for an instant Zabuza's head snapped to the side, following the illusion.

An instant was long enough. Hanako ran, twisting to avoid whatever it was Zabuza's ally had just thrown after her; she felt something graze her leg, but it didn't stick and a moment later she was gone.

She spent five minutes dodging around the roofs, and then it didn't matter whether she'd lost the two Kiri nin or not because the edges of her vision were getting dark and blurry. She circled back to her cheap room, almost put her foot wrong on the tiles, and dived through the window before anything else could happen, throwing an alarm seal on it.

Hanako dumped Miyu on the floor and and dug her pack out from under the bed. She'd packed light, but she was pretty sure she'd put in a roll of gauze - yeah, there it was, under her spare mask. She wadded it up and stuck it to her side, then tied it in place with one of her scarves; she thought, with grim amusement, that a medic could do a better job, but of course if she'd been assigned a medic instead of a Root brat in the first place she wouldn't have been stabbed at all...

She pulled out a scroll and opened it up. Summoning had never been her strong point, but at least she had plenty of blood for it. She swiped her bloody fingers across the seals and a large green dragonfly with the Konoha symbol patterned in its wings appeared. "Hey, boss!" it chirped. "What's up?"

"Find Ran and tell him to get out tonight, as soon as he can without rousing suspicion," Hanako said. "Then find Momo, tell her to wait a couple of days and then leave, too, unless it looks like she's been discovered - got all that?"

"No problem, boss," the dragonfly said, and it darted out the window.

Hanako took a second just to breathe, then started sorting through her pack again. No time to rinse out the hair-dye; she wrapped another scarf around her hair, slipped her mask over her face, and said, "Don't even think about sneaking out, I set an alarm on the window."

She heard Miyu pause long enough for the sound of fighting to become audible through the glass. "My mission -"

"The hell with your mission," said Hanako. Hadn't she packed _any_ painkillers? Damnit. She wrapped a strip of gauze around the graze on her leg and shoved everything back in the pack except the weapons. "We're compromised, we're getting out, and if Danzo complains tell him I'm the one to blame. Hope you didn't leave anything you're attached to at your camp, because we don't have time to go and get it."

"I've never been attached to anything," Miyu said.

That sounded creepy even by ANBU standards, but no time to worry about it now. "Good," Hanako said, and tossed Miyu a pack of explosive tags. "Let's go."

"Why?"

"I just told you, we've been compromised."

"No," Miyu said, "I mean, why are you helping me? I interfered with your mission and then I stabbed you."

"Like it or not," said Hanako, "and right now I don't like it very much - you're on my team. I bring my team home, whatever it takes. And at least you didn't kill me."

"Danzo-sama ordered me not to kill you unless it was necessary."

"Then remind me to thank Danzo when we get back," Hanako said. She slung her pack onto her back and took the seal off the window. "You first, and keep an eye out for any more of the Swordsmen."

Lucky for them, all the action was going on at the Mizukage's tower. Hanako hesitated just a moment - whatever was happening, it was probably something Konoha could use - but then went straight for the walls. If Momo's cover didn't get blown she'd find out as much as she could, that would have to be good enough.

The guards on the walls were minimal, and Miyu was behaving, a nice change; Hanako was just waiting for things to blow up, but after one tense moment where she had to use another illusion to distract an especially alert guard, they were out of Kirigakure.

Hanako almost fell over once they were in the forest, but Miyu caught her. This was going to be a fun trip back... At least she was alive, which she always counted as a success. As they leaped through the trees, Hanako decided that when they got back, she was definitely going to have a talk with someone - but not whoever had assigned Miyu to her team.

When she got back, she really needed to talk to Murasaki and Uzuki.


	4. A Conversation at the Memorial

**Author's Note: **_Don't worry, this little side story won't stop the next chapter going up on Friday - it's just a little bit of fun to make up for the short chapter last week. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! X3_

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><p><strong>A Conversation at the Memorial<strong>

Kakashi might lose track of time when he was visiting the memorial, but that didn't mean he stopped being aware of his surroundings entirely, and he was only mildly surprised when Itachi appeared silently beside him. He slouched a little lower against the post and said, "Hey, Captain."

Itachi didn't seem surprised at being noticed, and said, "I'm not your captain any more, Kakashi-san."

"Well, you know how it is. Old habits and all that," said Kakashi. "It's a bit unusual to see you out here, though..."

"Yes," Itachi agreed, kneeling to look for a name on the memorial. Kakashi didn't need to ask which name; it wasn't the most recent one by any means, but it wasn't too far from the bottom of the list, either. Danzo had fought against putting that name on the monument, but Itachi had insisted on it, and for a few days after the incident, whatever Itachi wanted, he had gotten.

Of course, that had changed quickly enough. The memorial was untouchable, however, and Uchiha Shisui's name remained.

Kakashi had been expecting Itachi to find him since he'd gotten the request, but for form's sake he asked, "So, what brings you here today? I hope you're not turning into a sentimental old man like me."

"I heard that you were assigned to lead Sasuke and Naruto's team," said Itachi.

Kakashi scratched his cheek and said, "Well, I would be surprised that you've heard already, but you are Itachi... The Hokage's asked me to take their team, but I'm still thinking it over - I'll probably accept, though. Going to ask me to go easy on your little brother and let him pass?"

"Of course not," Itachi said. "If you don't think that Sasuke is ready to graduate, then I trust your judgment."

"Ah," said Kakashi, wondering if that was Itachi's idea of a joke; Captain Itachi was well-known for a lot of things, but listening to other people about his little brother wasn't one of them.

Itachi stood, but didn't turn around. "If you do accept the assignment," he said, "I hope you realize that I would consider you personally responsible for my brother's safety."

The skin on the side of Kakashi's neck prickled, right above the spot where the kunai would slide in and sever his carotid artery. Seventeen Uchiha had died that way, mostly members of the police force; it was a quick death, at least, if bloody.

"Just kidding," Itachi said. He turned and there was almost a trace of a smile on his face. "I'm sure that you'll make a fine teacher, Kakashi-san. Please take good care of my brother and Naruto." He bowed slightly and said, "If you'll excuse me, I have some reports to finish..."

"Sure, sure," Kakashi said, and only after Itachi had vanished could he breathe easily again. He tried to calculate just how angry the Hokage would be if he refused the assignment after all; he didn't like the answers he came up with. Damn.

"My life would be so much easier if the other Uchiha were easy-going, like you," he told Obito, but he was pretty sure that was a lost cause.


	5. Unintended Consequences

**Author's Note: **_Oh look, I am mean-spiritedly denying you the chapter after a cliffhanger for a goofy side story! WHOOPS SORRY. Well - maybe not that sorry. X3 And let those among you who have NOT imagined an Itachi version of the Sexy no Jutsu cast the first stone. ... what, no takers?_

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><p><strong>Unintended Consequences<strong>

Naruto had spent a lot of time practicing eating and talking at the same time, and it was totally paying off now; he could stuff himself with Itachi's awesome cooking (even if it was mostly leftovers, this time) _and_ keep telling Itachi and Sasuke and Sakura-chan his great graduation story - with some bits left out, though.

"- and then that jerk Mizuki totally lied about some stupid reason for Iruka-sensei to hate me," he said, grabbing a dumpling before Sasuke could take it, "and um - I believed it, but only for a minute! And he tried to trick me into giving the scroll back to him, but actually it was Iruka-sensei who'd turned into me and they started fighting super seriously and that jerk hurt Iruka-sensei, so I made a whole huge bunch of shadow clones and I beat him up!" He paused long enough to help himself to more noodles. "Um, Mizuki, not Iruka-sensei. And Iruka-sensei was super impressed by how strong I was and that I learned the jutsu all by myself in one night, so he gave me his forehead protector and told me I graduated! I'm awesome, right? Right?"

Sakura looked vaguely horrified at the idea that a teacher could be evil, even though Naruto'd been telling everyone that they were for years, and Itachi said, "That is impressive, Naruto-kun," as he took some of the empty dishes off the table. Sasuke just looked annoyed, which didn't bother Naruto; Sasuke looked annoyed pretty much any time Itachi talked to other people, but Naruto knew it was just to hide how relieved Sasuke was that Itachi wasn't paying attention to him. Well - Naruto was pretty sure that was it.

Anyway, he didn't mind keeping Itachi's attention off Sasuke. It was what friends did, probably! Plus Itachi was a creepy murderer and all, but at least he was nice about it, and he was a _great_ cook.

Sakura said, "I guess it is sort of cool - although you really shouldn't have stolen the scroll..."

"Aside from that," said Itachi, sitting down beside Sasuke again, "I'm sure your parents would be very proud."

Naruto's mouth dropped open. "My _parents_? Hey, hey, did you _know_ them?" No one in Konoha had ever admitted knowing who Naruto's parents were or anything about them, if they'd even talk to him or Sasuke at all - even Iruka-sensei, that cheapskate, wouldn't say anything except that the Kyuubi had killed them. Had Itachi known about his parents this whole time? That was so unfair! "C'mon, I wanna know all about them! Please, Itachi? Pleeeeeeease?"

Itachi had that sort of extra-blank expression he had whenever he really didn't want to talk about something but couldn't get out of it completely. "Ah, I didn't know them very well," he said. "Just enough to know that they would be proud that their son graduated, and that - hm - they'd want you to eat more vegetables."

Naruto scowled. "That's stupid! Don't you know anything else? Like - were they super important? Did they invent an awesome jutsu or beat lots of strong people or -"

"Quit pestering Itachi-san!" Sakura hissed, elbowing him.

"I really can't tell you anything else," said Itachi, still looking blank.

Naruto was sure he was lying. "Okay, fine," he said, "then I'll just have to do this, yanno!"

Sasuke started to protest, but too late. Naruto made the seals as fast as he could and transformed; he leaned across the table, making sure the smoke stayed wrapped around his new, perfect round breasts, and said as sweetly as possible, "Pretty please, oniisama, won't you tell me more?"

Itachi's eyes had flickered red when Naruto made the seals, but he didn't freak out or get a huge nosebleed like Iruka-sensei or anything interesting. He just said, "Hm - so that's the jutsu you wanted to show me yesterday?"

"Um, yeah," Naruto said, playing with one of his ponytails. "Isn't it great? I came up with it all by myself!"

He barely dodged Sakura's fist. "That's the stupidest technique I've ever seen!" she yelled. "You creepy little pervert, I'll -"

"I can see how it could be useful," Itachi said; Sakura stopped mid-swing, and Sasuke stared at Itachi like he'd grown an extra head or something, although Sasuke kinda looked at Itachi that way most of the time. "Let's see - like this?"

He formed the same seals Naruto had, and Naruto's jaw dropped along with Sakura's, because Itachi had just turned _gorgeous_. His hair was longer and loose, flowing down his back, and he wasn't naked like Naruto was under the smoke; instead he was wearing a long kimono, but half-open so that you could see his slender neck and smooth shoulders and Naruto decided to stop looking so hard right there because it was just weird to ogle your best friend's older brother, no matter how pretty he looked with his hair down and a pair of breasts.

"Um - wow," Sakura said with a catch in her voice. "Itachi-san, you look really - um, amazing..." Sasuke was covering his eyes and making strangled angry noises, but he'd done that the first time Naruto had shown him the sexy jutsu too, so Naruto wasn't worried about it.

"You've totally got it!" Naruto said. "But you have to do the voice, too - right, oneesama?"

"Of course," said Itachi, and damn, he did a great voice, too! All smoky and low and super seductive...

"Oh, oneesama, you're so good at this," Naruto said, leaning even further over the table and looking up through his eyelashes. "Won't you please tell me just a little more about -"

The door banged open and that crazy Anko lady burst in. "Made it!" she said. "Sorry I'm late, I had to - Itachi?"

"Anko-san," Itachi said, dropping the transformation instantly; if Naruto didn't know better he'd think that Itachi was worried. On the other hand, it was Anko, so maybe Itachi actually was scared. "This is - well - I was trying something that -"

"Uh-huh," said Anko, and something in her voice made Naruto drop his transformation, too. "Just trying something - yeah, I know what you're gonna be trying. Hey, pink-hair! You need someone to walk you home?"

Sakura jumped. "Um - y-yes, please," she said, although she looked like she'd rather be walked home by starving wolves. "If it isn't too much trouble..."

"Right, let's go," Anko said. "Itachi! My place, soon as I get back, and then we'll really try it out, got it?"

"Yes, Anko-san," said Itachi, and she grinned at him, grabbed Sakura, and disappeared.

Itachi quickly gathered up the rest of the dishes to take to the kitchen; Sasuke was staring at Naruto, and as soon as Itachi was safely away from the table he leaned over it, grabbed Naruto's shirt, and said, "If I ever catch them making out like that, I'm going to kill you."

"Heh - um, sorry?" Naruto said, and decided that maybe he'd better not show Itachi the extra-powerful version, after all.


	6. Interruptions

**Interruptions**

Kakashi had been expecting a visit from Itachi since his team got back from the mission to Iwa, but he'd thought that he would at least be able to finish giving the Hokage a preliminary report first. Instead he was in the middle of summarizing the Akatsuki servant's interference when he felt a familiar chakra signature appear on the Hokage's windowsill.

"Captain Itachi," the Hokage said. "It's kind of you to visit, but as you can see, I'm talking to Kakashi right now."

"Please forgive me for interrupting, Hokage-sama," said Itachi, stepping down from the window, "but Sasuke told me what occurred on his recent mission."

Kakashi didn't groan out loud, because even he had professional standards and that would have violated them, as well as possibly attracting the Hokage's wrath. But his soul groaned. Of course the little twerp had told his big brother about the mission; he'd probably shown off his scars and bragged about facing Zabuza head-on. Great.

Jounin, ANBU especially, had stressful jobs, and everyone had their ways of handling it; Kakashi read Icha Icha, Anko had her tea ceremony thing, Gai was - Gai, and Captain Itachi had a brother complex the size of the Hokage monument. If Kakashi's team got any missions more exciting than grocery-shopping for the next year, it would be a miracle...

Sarutobi coughed. "Yes, well, I understand you may be upset," he began, "but Kakashi has explained why we didn't have intelligence on the situation, and it seems that -"

"You sent my brother out of Konoha while that person is still out there," Itachi said.

Kakashi kept his face still as he wondered what Itachi was talking about. Did he think that Zabuza'd had some kind of special grudge against the Uchiha? Zabuza hadn't even run into the sharingan before Kakashi, and he was dead now anyway.

The Hokage appeared slightly uncomfortable. "We had no way of knowing that the route to Iwa was no longer safe," he said. "It's unfortunate that this occurred, but the team handled the challenge very well - you should be pr-"

"He knew where Sasuke was," Itachi said, and Kakashi casually slipped a hand into his shuriken holster at Itachi's tone. "He knew exactly where Sasuke was and sent one of his followers' puppets to _look out_ for him!"

Ah. So this was about Akatsuki, then. As ex-ANBU Kakashi was out of the loop on that particular problem, but he knew Itachi was involved in keeping track of the organization; hearing that one of its members had a thing for the last two Uchiha was just the perfect end to this pit of a mission. Kakashi was never passing another genin team, not if he had to cheat outright to fail them.

"It's regrettable, but there's nothing to be done now," the Hokage was saying. "Missions have complications, as you're well aware. The important thing is that your brother's team is home safely, and - that person -" His eyes flicked over to Kakashi briefly. "- has yet to make an open move one way or the other."

Itachi said, "He knew Sasuke was outside of Konoha, he could have - it's too dangerous for Naruto-kun and Sasuke to be sent out of the village, they're still too young."

Kakashi was tired already from weeks of dealing with idiot genin and bloodthirsty missing-nin, and he'd never had much patience for overprotective teachers and family anyway. "Well, that's strange," he said cheerfully, "because at Sasuke's age I'd been a chuunin for five years, and I seem to have managed all right." For a given value of "all right," admittedly, but that was true of most shinobi who'd survived their first year. "He's not a student to protect anymore, he's one of my soldiers. If you didn't want him to become a shinobi, Captain, perhaps you should have -"

"That's enough, Itachi," the Hokage said sharply; Kakashi reached up to finger the nick on the side of his neck, the kunai still quivering in the wall behind him, and wondered how Naruto had survived being friends with two touchy Uchiha for more than a day.

"Hokage-sama," said Itachi, who'd barely moved to make that throw, "I understand that the village is busy, but it's too much of a risk for Sasuke to leave Konoha. With that person out there and the situation with Kumo and Kiri - it isn't safe."

The Hokage sighed. "Kakashi has the right of this," he said, with a lot more patience than Kakashi would've had in his place. "It's unpleasant, I know, but Sasuke is a shinobi now; he's going to run into danger whether you like it or not, and even remaining within the village can't guarantee his safety if things get worse."

"I don't want him to -!"

Kakashi could see Itachi catch himself, swallowing back whatever he'd been about to say. Funny, that; Captain Itachi was the type either to say what he meant to say or say nothing at all.

Then Itachi knelt in front of the Hokage, his head nearly touching the floor, and that made Kakashi's eyebrows shoot up. "Please, Hokage-sama," said Itachi, his voice flat and calm again despite his position. "My brother is dedicated to becoming a strong shinobi, but - he is only a genin, he isn't ready for what's out there. Please don't send him out of the village again."

Kakashi counted six long breaths before Sarutobi sighed again and said, "Just get up, Captain. I can't make any promises, but I'll see what I can do about the team's assignments -" Yep. It'd be carrying groceries and pulling weeds for a year, maybe finding a lost pet or two if they got lucky. "- and we'll all work to keep the situation outside of Konoha from getting any worse. Now, since you're here anyway -"

"Mmm?" Kakashi said.

"Ah, right," the Hokage said. "Sorry about this, Kakashi, but you're dismissed - just get your written report in sometime before the end of the month."

"Yes, sir," Kakashi said; he pulled the kunai out of the wall and flipped it back to Itachi, who caught it effortlessly. No apology, of course.

As he left the office he heard the Hokage say, "I've been in contact with Suna," and then shut the door behind him and closed his ears. The next round of chuunin exams - the only immediate reason Kakashi could think of for talking to Suna - wouldn't be for another three and a half months, and after that little display Kakashi wouldn't have signed his team up for all the tea in the Land of Tea. Or maybe he would, just to see if Itachi would try to talk the Hokage out of that, too.

Outside of the Hokage's tower, Kakashi paused and wondered what he should do. Well, he ought to go home and start writing up his report - or perhaps he should get takeout somewhere first, or he could go complain to Obito...

"Ah, my rival! What a pleasure it is to see you out on this fine and peaceful night!"

Kakashi smiled evilly beneath his mask. On the other hand, maybe a little time with Gai would be just the thing... "Yo," he said. "Feeling up for a challenge, Gai?"

"Naturally!" Gai beamed. "What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, just a friendly match or two," Kakashi said, steering Gai away from the tower. "Mmm, let's see..." At least Captain Itachi wasn't likely to come bother him in a bar, and tonight? That was good enough for Kakashi.


	7. fed me a line

**Author's Note:** _I know it's not as good as more chapters, but - er, dissertation's a bit urgent at the moment and the scenes I'm working on right now are my usual bane, ACTION SCENES__, so - please enjoy this side story in the meantime. It's set during the end of chapter 12, and, well, any excuse to write Naruto and Itachi interacting is a good excuse, right?_**  
><strong>

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><p><strong>fed me a line<strong>

As soon as Itachi was out of the apartment he had to lean against the outside wall to fight down the seal still trying to spread. He heard Anko shouting, but that only made it worse - _traitor liar traitor can't trust her kill h-_ and he pushed himself away again, towards the stairs. The seal burned against his skin, not with the pain of earlier but almost caressing, whispering offers of power. _Give in and I'll give you strength, enough to crush your enemies and protect him - more power than you can dream of..._

_No_, and Itachi forced himself to remember his brother's face with the pitiless clarity of the sharingan: pale and frightened, eyes wide as Itachi had shouted, then gone.

Three years. Three years Itachi had done everything he could think of, he had worked to take care of Sasuke and rebuild the trust he had killed with their family until Sasuke didn't run from him at every sudden movement, and one minute of temper had broken everything again. Snapped it like -

- _like bones like necks like puppets like_ -

He had to control himself; he covered the seal with his hand and breathed, in and out, remembering with each breath Sasuke's fear, until he felt the seal recede, and then he walked away.

* * *

><p>Itachi found himself at the hospital; he briefly considered taking Anko's advice and asking someone to look at the cursed seal, but it was calm for now, and he went instead to the front desk to ask for a room number. The nurse gave it to him with an odd look, but Itachi was used to those.<p>

He opened the door to room 311 quietly and saw Naruto halfway out of the window, still wearing a hospital gown and trailing an IV.

Itachi said, "Shouldn't you be resting, Naruto-kun?"

Naruto jumped and hit his head on the window-pane. "Ow! I - uh - whoa!" and Itachi caught one of his pinwheeling arms and pulled him back inside just before he toppled out of the window. Naruto sprawled back on the bed, panting, and said, "Whew - thanks, Itachi-nii!"

Something inside Itachi warmed a little at that; Naruto only called him "Itachi-nii" when Sasuke wasn't around, and as small a gesture as it was, he appreciated it. "I don't think you're quite ready to leave the hospital yet," he said. "Certainly not by the window..."

"But it's so _boring_," Naruto groaned, "and they won't even let me have ramen - if I got some ramen I'd be totally fine in no time, yanno!"

Itachi doubted that; he didn't need the sharingan to sense that Naruto's chakra levels were still dangerously low - but he was getting distracted. He let his hand fall to one of his concealed kunai and asked, "Naruto-kun, did you know that Sasuke was training with Orochimaru?"

"He _what_?" Naruto shot upright again, wide-eyed. "Wait, is that who that creepy snake guy - oh, crap!"

"You didn't know, then," said Itachi.

Naruto shook his head, his fists tightening on the blanket. "That jerk - he never said anything about freakin' _Orochimaru_," he said, and there was nothing but honest anger on his face. "I mean, he was acting kinda weird, but I thought it was 'cause of - something else, I guess... Argh!" Naruto fell back on the bed and flung his arms out. "And he didn't tell me, even though it was a creep like that... Geez, that guy - he's my best friend, yanno, but he can be a total asshole sometimes!"

"I suppose so," Itachi said; slightly relieved, he took his hand away from the kunai and pulled the room's single chair over to sit down. A treacherous host couldn't be allowed in the village, of course, but Itachi hadn't particularly wanted to kill Naruto.

Naruto was talking again, and Itachi listened to the enthusiastic rise and fall of his voice without hearing the words. It was normal, comforting, but Itachi's mind couldn't settle; the seal on his shoulder whispered and gnawed at him, and he asked, "Why?"

"- and Gaara was like - huh? Why what?"

"Why didn't Sasuke turn Orochimaru over to ANBU?" Itachi said. "Why would he go near that man?" He couldn't understand it, it didn't make sense, because it wasn't like Sasuke at all. Sasuke got top grades in school, Sasuke trained hard to become strong, Sasuke did well in all his missions and wanted to join ANBU and looked out for his friends, and yet he had spent a month hiding a man who wanted to see all of Konoha dead. Somehow when Itachi had been away Sasuke had become a stranger, and Itachi couldn't understand. "Why?"

"I - I dunno," said Naruto, smiling nervously. If Itachi didn't know better he would have thought that Naruto was lying, but Naruto didn't have a deceptive bone in his body. "It's pretty strange, huh... Hey, wait, how come you're back already? You were in Suna, right? Did you find out about Orochimaru sneaking in or something?"

"Yes, I -"

He had gotten through Sasori's defenses with the old woman's help, broken past the hollow faces of puppets that had once been friends, comrades, parents and families (_brothers_), and he had driven a kunai through the puppetmaster's preserved heart only to hear Sasori laugh. "Aren't you wasting your time here? One of my spies told me that my old partner decided to visit his home town," as blood leaked out of the wooden carapace, staining the sand red.

Itachi had retrieved his kunai, ordered Tenzo and Hinoko to return to Suna, and given the puppet Sasori had made of himself to the old woman. She hadn't blinked. "Well, that's the last of my family Konoha can kill," she had said, her voice dry and calm. "No, don't apologize. He was a missing-nin, after all, might as well have been you as anyone - least it wasn't that damned Hatake. Better run on home, boy."

Itachi hadn't been sure what to say to Chiyo when the body of her grandson lay at her feet, so he had quickly wrapped a bandage around his wounded leg and bowed to her, and then he had run home.

Naruto was too young to hear about human puppets and the old scars of the war with Suna.

"- I found out from someone that Orochimaru had returned to Konoha," he said, "so I came back to stop him. I was a little late, though - I'm sorry you were mixed up in this, Naruto-kun."

"Nah, it's fine," Naruto said, sitting up again. "I only saw him for like a second, yanno, then he took off with Sasuke and me and Haku had to take care of Gaara. What a creep! What's he want with Sasuke, anyway? If I see him again I'm gonna - hey, are you okay?"

Itachi instinctively reached to cover the seal, but it hadn't activated again. Of course, he still hadn't had a chance to clean up properly today - Naruto had just noticed that and started worrying. He had a kind heart; it was good that he had become Sasuke's friend. "Yes, I'm fine," Itachi said, and he put on a smile. "It was a long trip from Suna and I'm a little tired, that's all. Tell me, how have things in Konoha been? You haven't gotten into too much trouble, have you?"

"No, no way! Uh, well - maybe a little," Naruto said, and he launched into an excited retelling of the month that Itachi had been gone. Itachi listened with quiet, slightly horrified amusement to Naruto's stories, until Naruto had talked himself out and dozed off; he pulled the hospital blanket up to cover Naruto so he wouldn't catch a cold and left.

A woman in a Root jacket was waiting for Itachi in the hall outside. "Captain," she said, "you've been ordered to report to Commander Danzo and the council at once. They're meeting in ANBU headquarters, due to the condition of the Hokage's tower."

Of course Danzo had heard. That damned - _no_. "I understand," Itachi said. "I'll be there shortly." The woman looked slightly familiar, and he asked, "Miyu-san, isn't it? How is Captain Hana doing?"

The woman hesitated a moment, then said, "It's Aya right now. And Captain Hana continues to perform her duties adequately."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Itachi, and put on another smile for her. "Please tell her hello for me."

"Yes, Captain," Miyu - Aya - said; she hesitated again before adding, "Good luck," and then she vanished.

He didn't follow her immediately, as he should have; instead he closed his eyes and began to curse Danzo in his mind at length, with every foul word he had ever heard from missing-nin or his fellow ANBU. He knew what Danzo wanted, what he would ask for, and he had so little he could use to protect Sasuke. _Sasuke - why? How could you take such a risk? Why?_

_He knows_, and Itachi heard Orochimaru's low, ugly laugh. _He hates you, and I told him everything you've done - he'd do anything to bring you down, he'll never forgive you -_

It didn't matter. Itachi rested his forehead against the cool, polished hospital wall. It didn't matter, it didn't matter, he knew that Sasuke would never forgive him; he had known that for three years and it didn't _matter_. He had chosen Sasuke's hatred, and as long as Sasuke and Konoha were safe, nothing else mattered.

_Safe?_ the seal hissed. _He'll tear down Konoha to get to you - he'd watch it burn and never care, if it meant killing you. Which would you choose? Could you stop him without destroying him, weak as you are?_

Crow's wings fluttered in his mind, and an eye blinked, black and red. Yes. If Sasuke couldn't be trusted, there was the eye and its embedded command. Yes, Shisui's last gift could fix it all, could stop Sasuke before Danzo tried to take his eyes or -

Itachi's eyes opened and he saw his reflection in the wall, blackness eating its way up his cheek. No. Not that way. There had to be another way. Sasuke still had his friends, he was still bound to the village, if he still hadn't realized the danger he was in - well, that was why he still had a brother in Konoha.

Itachi breathed out, watched the seal fade, and went to face Danzo.


	8. he's not coming back

**Author's Note: **_I know, I know this isn't more AU - sorry! But at least it's a plot-important side story - no, really, I promise! And it really does need to go up before the next chapter does..._

* * *

><p><strong>he's not coming back<strong>

Although Haku was well enough to walk around, he had been encouraged to stay at the hospital, as his crushed arm required special medical attention, and he had agreed readily; there was little reason to return to Naruto's apartment when Naruto and Sasuke had left that morning and no one else would be there. Haku was rather tired of his hospital room, though, and after lunch asked the nurse's permission to walk around the hospital for exercise.

In truth, the hospital was little more interesting than an empty apartment, but it was a welcome excuse for Haku to stretch his legs and see more than the bland walls of his room and the flowers Sakura had brought the day before. He was able to visit Kakashi, who was sharing a room with a rather energetic friend and didn't seem very happy about it, and some of the chuunin whom he had gotten to know while being watched during his first weeks in Konoha. He thought of visiting Gaara, but according to the nurses Gaara had been released on the same day as Naruto and hadn't been seen in the hospital since.

Haku had considered visiting the Hokage, too, but the poisoned Kages were under extraordinarily sharp surveillance and not allowed visitors, not even family, certainly not orphans who had been the tool of a missing-nin until very recently. Haku understood, but he felt a little disappointed anyway; the Hokage had been kind to him after he had been interrogated and classified as a non-threat, and Haku would have liked to repay that kindness.

As he turned down a hall to find his way back to his room, he found himself running into a tall ANBU guard and caught himself just in time. "Hold up," the guard said, keeping Haku at arm's length, "no unauthorized personnel allowed in this hall - sorry, miss."

Haku didn't correct the guard; he didn't mind being a girl in Konoha, unlike some of the places he had been with Zabuza. "I'm sorry," he said with a smile, "I think I must have taken a wrong turn - do you know how to get back to -"

The door behind the guard opened, and Haku recognized Ino's father in the doorway, supported by a scarred man - Morino Ibiki, Haku remembered, the man who had been in charge of his interrogation. Through the door behind them Haku could see a shock of white hair against a white pillow, and caught a glimpse of an oddly familiar face with two red spots above closed eyes -

Oh.

"- get past that seal," Ino's father said, rubbing his forehead. "Like trying to shove my mind through a wall of fire."

"If the medics agree to increasing the dosage of -"

"Ah, Ibiki-san," the ANBU guard said, "there's someone here, so -"

"Please excuse me for intruding," said Haku, keeping his polite smile up.

"The Mist kid?" Ibiki said. "What are you doing here? This area's off-limits."

"I was lost," Haku said. "My apologies, Ibiki-san. Are you having a difficult time with the interrogation?"

Ibiki grumbled, "You pick up on too much, kid. Yeah."

"It's a side effect of this seal he's got," Yamanaka said, "when I try to - ack - well, you don't need to know the details, I guess." Ibiki's supporting grip had tightened on the other man's shoulder mid-sentence. "Anyway, he's too weak for more traditional methods, so - damn, Ibiki, I get it!"

"I'm sorry to hear it," Haku said again; he considered his next words with great care before saying, "I don't mean to presume, but - I've heard that sometimes, gaining the prisoner's trust first can be a very effective questioning technique..."

"Hn," said Ibiki, eying Haku. "You've heard that, huh? You think we can spare someone to sit around buddying up to a prisoner?"

Haku's smile never cracked as he said, "Of course not, sir, but I believe that I've met this prisoner before."

The ANBU guard tensed a little, and their partner by the door shifted to block it; Ibiki didn't move an inch.

"Met him before?" Yamanaka said. "I don't remember that, and I went through your head pretty thoroughly."

"It was a very brief meeting," said Haku, although the memory of it had come back to him with a surprising vividness - the cool night, the bright moon, the small polite voice asking if they were from Kirigakure. "It had nothing to do with Akatsuki, or any other threat to Konoha."

Ino's father looked thoughtful, but Ibiki said, "So you want me to give you access to a prisoner, who may or may not remember you, because you ran into him once?"

"I wouldn't think of presuming, Ibiki-san," Haku said. His face was beginning to ache with the strain of keeping up his pleasant smile. "But I don't have any responsibilities right now, and if I could be of use to Konoha in any way..."

The ANBU guards glanced at each other, and Yamanaka said, "It couldn't hurt - you cleared the kid yourself, didn't you?"

Haku stayed silent.

Four tense breaths later Ibiki growled, "Fine. These are the rules..."

* * *

><p>Kimimaro was not as drugged as the medics of Konoha thought he was. It was some side effect of his bloodline, Orochimaru-sama had told him, that let him build up tolerances for foreign substances such as poison at an abnormal rate, and his tolerance for sedatives had been growing before his capture. Still, he had not yet recovered entirely from the fight against Konoha's ANBU and the Sannin Jiraiya, nor had he determined how he could best serve Orochimaru-sama in his current situation; better for him to remain in the hospital bed, letting the Konoha interrogators wear themselves out, while he considered his options.<p>

He paid no particular attention to the passing of time, but tracked the changing of his guards by their chakra signatures, which they didn't attempt to hide. When the guard inside his room moved to the door directly after another futile attempt at interrogation, he began to pull himself out of his contemplation; when a new person with an unfamiliar chakra signature entered and took a seat, his guard went up. Had his questioners gotten frustrated and brought in someone new? But the new person didn't touch him, didn't come near him, said nothing; he was about to dismiss them as simply a new guard or nurse when a soft voice said, "So it is you, after all - I wasn't completely sure, it's been some time."

Kimimaro turned his head and dredged his eyelids open enough to see a blurry outline seated next to the wall. A blurry outline with - he blinked and tried to focus - long, dark hair, and a round face that he had seen before, younger and softer... "You," he said. "Outside Mist."

"You remember me," the familiar stranger said, and they smiled. "I wasn't sure if you would - it was such a long time ago, and a very brief meeting. How strange it is for us to meet again here..."

Kimimaro let his eyes close and felt something through the haze of sedatives that might have been astonishment. He had often remembered that night - it had been his first night out of his cell, and the night that had led to the morning when he had met Orochimaru-sama; it would be far stranger if he didn't remember it - but he could not truthfully admit to ever thinking very much about the two people he had met on the way to Kirigakure. He had never expected he would see either of them again, least of all in the stronghold of Orochimaru-sama's enemies.

Several questions came to mind, but he asked only one. "How?"

"How did I end up here?"

"Yes," Kimimaro said, and forced his eyes open again to watch the stranger.

"Hmm..." They looked to the side, considering. "It's a complicated story, really, and you seem a bit tired. Maybe we can talk about it tomorrow, I don't want to be too troublesome."

An ache was beginning to build in Kimimaro's bones from keeping himself alert, but he ignored it and said, "Your name?"

"Oh, yes - we didn't introduce ourselves before, did we?" the stranger said. "I'm Haku - what's your name?"

He considered the risk of sharing his name, then discarded it; it would give away nothing, as he had no reputation outside of Sound. "Kimimaro."

"It's nice to meet you again, Kimimaro-kun," said Haku, smiling; as the smile blurred Kimimaro closed his eyes again, and found, to his great surprise, that he agreed.

* * *

><p>When Haku visited again, Kimimaro thought that about a day had passed. The usual interrogators had come and gone, but their attempt to force information had been brief and halfhearted, barely an interrogation at all, and Haku had appeared soon after. So they thought to get information from him through a friendly approach? They would be quickly disappointed.<p>

As Haku had come in, Kimimaro had heard one of the ANBU say, "Excuse us, miss," and so he decided that he wouldn't give Haku the opportunity to take the offensive; he gathered his strength while Haku sat, and said, "Are you a girl?"

"Ah, you heard the ANBU?" Haku said. "Hmm - no, I'm not technically a girl. But I don't care if people think I am one, and for some reason a lot of people seem to... Does it matter to you?"

That gave Kimimaro pause, but he said, "No."

"I'm glad to hear it," Haku said, and Kimimaro forced his eyes open to see a smile on Haku's face. "One of my best friends is a girl, after all."

In his mind, Kimimaro reluctantly conceded the first round to Haku, and waited for Haku to begin questioning him. But Haku didn't ask any questions. Instead the other boy was quiet for a few moments, and then he began to talk about his friends. He didn't tell the story that Kimimaro had asked for, of how Haku had come to Konoha; only trivial, everyday stories, of funny conversations and training mishaps and minor arguments. Boring stories, with no information of any interest that Kimimaro could bring back to Orochimaru, and yet Kimimaro made the effort to listen rather than let the words flow past him. There was something warm in Haku's voice when he spoke about his friends that kept his attention and reminded him a little of Juugo, although, of course, it would not lead Kimimaro to reveal any information about Sound or Orochimaru-sama. He would never be so susceptible to such simple emotional manipulation as that.

As he listened, an unfamiliar feeling began to creep along his nerves. At first he thought it might only be the sedatives wearing off faster than usual, but there was a heaviness to this sensation that didn't usually accompany the fading of the sedatives; keeping the motion slow and subtle, he tested the restraints on his left arm. They remained tight, but with his strength returning, there was just enough give that he could activate the seal and break free, if it became necessary.

That realization gave him a name for the unfamiliar feeling, and in the middle of Haku's story he said, "Foolish."

"Eh?"

"This is foolish," Kimimaro said. "If I were stronger -" He was already strong enough, but only he needed to know that. "- I could use you as a hostage. To get away." For some reason this had caused him to worry; whenever he decided to break free he doubted he would need Haku as a hostage, but he didn't like to think of Haku being so careless.

"Oh, I don't think so," said Haku, and his light voice cooled. "It's true I couldn't stop you, but I'm not a real citizen of Konoha - nobody would think twice about killing me to prevent you from escaping, besides my friends, and they're not here at the moment. I'm sorry if that ruins your escape plans, although -" He smiled, and the warmth returned to his voice. "- it's kind of you to be concerned for me."

Kimimaro shut his eyes, but he didn't deny his concern. Haku didn't resume his stories, and after a few moments of silence, he said, "Do you have any friends? They're probably worried about you by now..."

"Friends?"

"Someone important to you," Haku said. "I thought - well, I suppose I hadn't thought about you in a long time, before I saw you were here, but the first time we met, I thought you looked very lonely... Sometimes, when I was younger, I wondered if you had ever met anyone who would be important to you - I always hoped that you had."

Kimimaro considered this. He didn't associate with many shinobi in Sound beyond his direct subordinates, who were certainly not friends; he lived for Orochimaru-sama, and - well, there was Juugo, the boy whose blood Orochimaru-sama had used to create the cursed seal. Juugo was a gentle person when his blood didn't turn him into a berserker, but when it did only Kimimaro could keep him from hurting others, and so he had grown accustomed to accompanying Juugo in his spare time. Juugo could be good company while he was calm, and with slight amazement Kimimaro realized that he had in some way missed Juugo's quiet presence. Of course, Orochimaru-sama came first, always, since he was the one who had given meaning to Kimimaro's existence...

He hadn't answered Haku's question. "Yes," he said, "I have," his voice dry and scratchy.

"I'm really glad," said Haku, and the happiness in his voice did seem genuine. "Being a shinobi, or even just living in the shinobi countries - it's so easy never to have anyone, to lose your family and your friends and your purpose... It's hard to live that way; I'm glad you have someone."

Kimimaro's throat felt rough and sore, and he thought that he ought to go to sleep and let Haku talk or leave as he wished, but without planning to he asked, "What about the man you were with that night?"

A frozen silence; then Haku said softly, "He's dead now."

_I'm sorry_, Kimimaro meant to say, but he began to cough and the words drowned in bubbles of blood and drugs as he slipped out of awareness; he was never sure if he had managed to say them aloud.

* * *

><p>Haku continued to visit Kimimaro every morning for the next few days, although he wasn't sure how useful his visits were in gathering information; he did most of the talking, still, with only occasional short observations or answers to innocuous questions from Kimimaro. He liked talking with Kimimaro anyway, but he did worry that he wasn't accomplishing what he had promised Ibiki.<p>

When he had mentioned his concern to Ibiki after one conversation, the man had only shrugged. "Kid," he'd said, "you got his name out of him on the first day you talked to him, and that's more than we managed. It's a slow process, gathering intelligence like this - don't worry about the time and don't rush and get his guard up, you're doing fine."

Haku had nodded and agreed and smiled, and behind his smile he had continued to worry that he was spending too much time trying to become Kimimaro's friend and not enough trying to get information out of him. Even behind the smile, he didn't let himself think that perhaps he cared more about Kimimaro than about information.

They hadn't spoken about Zabuza again.

"Try to move your little finger without moving any of the others," Kabuto said, and Haku tried. The little finger on his outstretched right hand twitched feebly, and when he tried again, all of his fingers jerked up.

"Hm," said Kabuto.

Haku was beginning to dislike his afternoon examinations by the medics. The medics were always encouraging and cheerful as they poked at his right arm and asked him questions, but they had yet to give him any kind of firm answer as to when his arm would be healed. Kabuto was the most inscrutable of them all, although polite and likable otherwise; since Sasuke's outburst, Haku had begun paying more attention to him, but he hadn't yet been able to discover anything that would explain why Sasuke had thought Haku would recognize the medic from somewhere else.

Kabuto turned Haku's hand over and began to tap lightly on the pads of each one, causing them to twitch. "Good, good," he said, and Haku wished for the thousandth time that Sasuke had not been so stubbornly close-mouthed. Just one hint, one clue as to why Kabuto's voice should have a familiar ring...

"Ah, good," said Kabuto, and he released Haku's hand. "It looks like the nerves haven't been too badly damaged, although -" He smiled, but there was something pitying in it. "- I'm afraid that the damage to the muscles and tendons was quite severe all along your arm. Your right arm will certainly be usable for everyday tasks, but it's highly unlikely that you'll regain full functionality."

"Oh," Haku said.

"Please don't let it bother you too much," Kabuto said, still smiling. "After all, you work at - hm, Ichiraku Ramen, don't you? I don't think the damage will interfere with your job there at all. It would be a different story if you were a shinobi or trying to become one, but since you aren't..."

"No, I'm not," Haku agreed, and turned his head to look out the window. "Thank you for telling me."

"Well, I need to continue my rounds - I'll see you later, Haku-kun," Kabuto said. Haku continued to stare out the window as he listened to Kabuto stand up, fuss with his lab coat, and close the door, and even when he was sure Kabuto was truly gone he couldn't bring himself to move, as if any further movement would make the medic's words irrevocably true.

As if he were watching himself come to the realization from very far away, Haku thought that he hated Kabuto.

Immediately at this realization, the thought of staying in his room became unbearable. He got up from the chair he had been sitting in for the examination and left, with no clear idea of where he meant to go besides out of the room and away.

If his friends had been in Konoha, he thought he would have gone to them; as it was, he was not entirely surprised when he ended up facing the ANBU guards outside of Kimimaro's room. One of them wore a boar mask, the other a horse, and by hair and build Haku could tell they were not the pair that had been guarding Kimimaro earlier.

The horse-masked ANBU said, "Hey, don't you usually visit in the morning?"

"I do," Haku said, with his customary smile; he still felt as if he were watching himself act from a great distance, but he couldn't let that show, or anything that might make the ANBU suspicious. "I thought that it might be helpful if I visited the prisoner twice a day, since I don't stay very long."

Horse and boar exchanged looks, and the boar said, "I don't think it would be a problem, but we'll have to search you again since you left the room."

"Of course, I understand," said Haku, and quietly stood through the quick but thorough inspection the boar-masked ANBU made. Haku had never made the mistake of trying to visit Kimimaro armed - he did keep a few of his needles in his hospital room, in case of an emergency, but never carried them anywhere else in the hospital - and when the ANBU decided he was clean, they let him into Kimimaro's room.

Kimimaro appeared to be asleep as Haku entered, but after Haku had sat down, Kimimaro's eyes slid open a fraction in narrow crescents of light green. "You're back," he said. "Early."

"Yes," Haku said, "I hope you don't mind. I just wanted to talk with you again for a little bit... If you're too tired, I can go."

A brief silence, and then Kimimaro said, "It's fine," his eyes shutting again.

"Thank you."

Haku distantly considered his conversational options. He shouldn't begin with a serious story, which meant putting off the story of how he had ended up in Konoha for at least a few more minutes, or another day. Something light, maybe a little funny, that didn't give away any information... Perhaps one of Naruto-kun's stories about retrieving that noblewoman's cat who kept escaping. Yes, that would be a good start. Haku would tell that story first.

"I can't be a shinobi anymore," he said.

Oh. That wasn't what Haku had meant to say at all. He had meant to be light and cheerful and not bothered by Kabuto's words, by the poorly concealed condescension in Kabuto's voice, by Kabuto's false pity. He reached up with his left hand to push a strand of hair out of his face, and it trembled. Oh dear.

If only Kimimaro would say something. Anything, it didn't matter, so that Haku could apologize and change the subject to something else, but Kimimaro said nothing and Haku's treacherous mouth opened.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that," all right, that was acceptable. "But it's almost funny, somehow," and his voice cracked, oh no, that wasn't at all acceptable but he couldn't stop. "I thought that I didn't mind not being a shinobi. I had my friends, and I was working at a ramen shop, and I thought that I was happy... And then when it mattered, it turned out that I wanted to fight after all, that I wanted to protect my friends. It didn't go very well, but even so - I thought that when I got better, I'd start training seriously again and try to join the Konoha shinobi, so I could fight alongside my friends. But I can't," and he covered his eyes with his left hand and felt tears, cold and damp. "My arm won't heal right, so I can't be a ninja. It's funny, isn't it? Just when I realized what I wanted, it's taken away, and I'm useless... I couldn't protect Zabuza-san, and I can't help my friends - I'm just a worthless person again," his mouth twisting bitterly on the words. "If I could have just died with Zabuza-san -"

"Stop it," Kimimaro said, and a little shock ran through Haku. "You aren't worthless. Even if you can't fight."

Haku wiped his eyes and looked up.

Kimimaro had opened his eyes and turned his head to watch Haku, a slight frown on his face. "Do your friends care if you can fight?" he asked.

Haku sniffled, and after a moment's thought said, "No. No, I don't think so..."

"I don't care, either," said Kimimaro. "So it doesn't matter. If your friends still care about you, then you aren't worthless." He closed his eyes again.

Haku sniffled one more time, then wiped away the last of the tears on his cheeks. "I suppose you have a point," he said. "I - I hadn't thought of it in quite that way."

"You can always find a way to be useful." Kimimaro's voice was growing raspy, as Haku had noticed it often did when Kimimaro was getting tired, but he continued. "I can no longer become a vessel for Orochimaru-sama, but still - there are still ways for me to serve him... Neither of us are useless."

"You're right," Haku said, and his smile this time was unforced. "I'm sure that Orochimaru must think very highly of you - he's lucky to have someone so dedicated." He wished that he could reach over and take Kimimaro's hand, but of course physical contact with a prisoner was forbidden, and Kimimaro might not appreciate such a gesture, anyway.

He ought to be going; he stood up and said, "I should let you rest, but - thank you for listening, Kimimaro-kun. It was - it was very kind."

Kimimaro didn't answer immediately, and Haku was opening the door when he heard a faint, "I'm not kind."

"Pardon?"

"I'm not kind," said Kimimaro, his voice rough as it faded out. "My friend Juugo - it's what he told me. That's all. It's not because I'm kind."

"Ah," Haku said. "Then I'm glad we both have such good friends. I'll see you tomorrow, Kimimaro-kun," and he closed the door gently and left.

* * *

><p>It was becoming clear to Kimimaro that he needed to escape.<p>

He had not yet revealed any information that could compromise Sound or Orochimaru-sama, nor had Haku asked for any such information, but Kimimaro could feel his sympathy for Haku growing greater with each of their brief meetings; if he didn't leave Konoha soon, he would find it difficult to leave at all. He had already found himself trying to plan a route of escape that would involve the least damage to the ANBU guards and the civilians of Konoha, which shouldn't be a part of his calculations at all. Yes, it was past time for him to return to Orochimaru-sama; it was just the method and the proper moment that he needed to decide upon.

He was considering the possibilities when he heard the muffled conversation of the guards outside his door interrupted by a familiar voice. Reluctantly, he pulled himself out of his thoughts and waited, and a few minutes later, he heard the door open. "- sure it's okay?" one of the guards said, and the other one replied, "Yes, it's normal for interns to trade shifts, and Yakushi has clearance to treat prisoners."

"Sorry to disturb the routine," the familiar voice said. "It should only take a few minutes, unless you've noticed any changes in his condition..."

"No, go ahead. Bear will keep an eye on him for you."

"Thank you."

Kimimaro opened his eyes just enough to see Yakushi Kabuto standing over him, and a bear-masked ANBU hovering behind Kabuto's shoulder. He wasn't surprised. Orochimaru had told him that Kabuto would remain in Konoha if the attempt on the Kages were to fail, although Kimimaro hadn't considered the information of much use; he could escape with his own strength, and any attempted aid from Kabuto would only risk the spy being revealed, without benefit to Orochimaru.

In fact it was puzzling that Kabuto had taken the trouble to see Kimimaro at all, as it would be difficult for Kabuto to tell him anything with the ANBU keeping an eye on them both and the camera that Kimimaro had long ago spotted in one corner of the room, and Kimimaro kept his attention focused on Kabuto as the medic flipped through his chart. "Hmm, let's see -"

"No talking to the prisoner," the bear-masked ANBU said.

"Of course not, sorry," said Kabuto, as Kimimaro watched his hands subtly begin to form seals, hidden from the camera and the ANBU's view among the sheets of paper. "I was just talking out loud to myself, it's a bad habit of mine, I'm afraid," and a second Kabuto stepped out from behind him.

"I'll be as quick as possible," the first Kabuto said, and the second added, "Don't react, Kimimaro-kun, this is only a genjutsu."

Kimimaro didn't react; he let himself blink once, and listened as the first Kabuto checked his IV.

"Our master has gotten impatient," the second Kabuto said. "He wants you to return as soon as you can - though there's one little thing he'd like you to finish first."

_The Kages_, Kimimaro thought. Naturally, since Orochimaru-sama had been forced to leave the fight before striking the final blow, he wanted his most trusted servant to complete the task.

"This should keep him under control," said a Kabuto, and the other said, "I've switched out the medications, so you should be feeling more alert soon. I'll come back for you this evening and we'll take care of that last little errand, all right? I'll be returning with you, as Orochimaru-sama requires my skills."

Kimimaro continued not to answer.

"You can dispel the genjutsu now," Kabuto said, and a moment later, "I'm done - thanks for your patience."

Kimimaro shut his eyes, and his right hand twitched as he thought, _Kai_.

"Wait - did you see the prisoner move just now?" the ANBU guard said.

"Hm? No, sorry, I was updating the chart. Is there a problem?"

Kimimaro kept his eyes closed and lay still; after a moment the guard said, "I guess not. You can go now."

The door clicked shut, and Kimimaro heard the guard settle back into the chair. "Hmf - weird guy, no wonder he's still an intern," she said. "Too bad that pretty friend of yours isn't a medic, huh? I'd rather be looked after by someone cute like that than by a spacey intern who can't even pass the chuunin exams."

Trash. Kabuto was more than capable of handling an ANBU or five; Konoha would learn that soon enough. Kimimaro only had to wait, and he would be able to leave behind this soft, silly village and return to Orochimaru's side, to the place that he truly belonged.

Yet an unpleasant chill settled over him as he lay still and waited for evening to fall, and he could feel no eagerness at all.

* * *

><p>Haku had asked Ibiki if it was all right for him to visit Kimimaro more frequently, and Ibiki had told him it was fine, visit whenever, as long as it didn't make the prisoner suspicious of Haku. Haku had thus started to make a habit of going to see Kimimaro twice a day, once in the morning, and then again either in the late afternoon or the early evening. It seemed to be effective; just yesterday Kimimaro had talked about the day he had met Orochimaru, without even being asked.<p>

That story, told in a few simple sentences, weighed heavily on Haku's mind as he went for his evening visit with Kimimaro. To think that Kimimaro had met the snake Sannin so soon after running into Haku and Zabuza - it gave Haku a curious feeling of regret. If only he had spoken more to Kimimaro that night, if he had said something to Zabuza-san, then maybe... But no, that was a foolish idea. Zabuza-san wouldn't have wanted to pick up another stray child.

Occupied with his thoughts, Haku was almost at the door of Kimimaro's room when he realized that the two ANBU guards stationed outside the door hadn't challenged him yet; he paused to wait for them to notice his presence. Really, they should be more alert - he hadn't been trying to be stealthy at -

They weren't breathing.

Haku's left hand went instinctively to his hair, but the needles he usually concealed there had been left behind in his room. Of course. Damn.

He ought to leave at once and call for more ANBU, he wouldn't be of any use here injured and unarmed, but he took one silent step closer to the ANBU (killed as they stood, better to bring all the information he could with him) and the hall's cold light glinted along the thin silver handles of the scalpels in their throats.

Panic slammed into Haku, and he forced himself to swallow, to be still and let the fear wash over him and pass. He almost reached for one of the scalpels, just to have a weapon, but pulled his hand back in time - it would look too suspicious if he took one. He grasped the door's handle instead and eased it open without a sound. Just a crack, just wide enough to see the third guard slumped in the chair and the edge of a dark cloak, to hear "- have to be quick, Kimimaro-kun" in a light voice -

- _"Oh dear, I was only aiming for your arm -" as the world went dark_ -

- _"There was someone else - a man in a cloak"_ -

- _"Don't you know him? Don't you remember?"_ -

Haku did now. Too late. _I'm sorry, Sasuke-kun, you were right..._ He breathed in, crouched, opened the door a little wider, and slipped inside.

The Akatsuki puppet had his back to Haku; Kimimaro sat on the edge of the bed, his head turned toward the puppet (_Kabuto_) and the door. Haku froze, as if perfect stillness could somehow hide him, but Kimimaro's cool green eyes passed over him without blinking.

"They're in separate rooms, of course," Kabuto said, "which means we'll have to split up - I have clearance to treat the Kazekage, so I'll handle him. You can take this cloak and one of the ANBU masks and take care of the Hokage, and we'll meet up at the wall after we're both done."

He should have brought his needles. He should have taken one of the scalpels out of the guards. He had a useless, aching arm and no weapons and the man who had killed Zabuza-san was standing right in front of him, talking about killing the person who had allowed Haku to stay in Konoha with Sakura and Sasuke and Naruto. Haku had never considered himself to be reckless, but it was all he could do not to throw himself directly at Kabuto and go for his throat.

Instead he began to make seals with his good hand, preparing the subtlest genjutsu he knew. If Kimimaro didn't give him away, if Kabuto didn't sense him, he could get away when they left and alert someone in time to protect the Kages...

"It's a pity, though," said Kabuto. "I was so relieved to learn that you -"

Haku moved, and a scalpel sliced through only a few strands of his hair and not his eye.

"- had survived," Kabuto finished; he had turned when he'd thrown the scalpel and shifted position as Haku dodged, and now he was in front of the door and Haku would have to fight to get past him.

"You have such an intriguing ability," Kabuto said. "My master would have been so pleased to have a chance to study it - but we can't afford to carry dead weight along. We'll have to make a quick exit, after all." Under the cloak's hood, Haku could see a smirk.

Haku kept his back to the wall as he stood. He'd never escape, but if he could slow Kabuto down long enough for someone to realize something was wrong... "I won't let you get out of here so easily," he said.

Kabuto gave a small, polite laugh. "Do you think you can stop both of us in your condition?" he said, though Kimimaro had yet to make a move. "Don't forget, I'm one of your medics. I know exactly what you can't do - just give up and die quietly, like a good child."

"Ah, that's true," Haku said, and he smiled. "But I think you must not have watched me fight very closely, Kabuto-san, or you would have remembered what I _can_ do..."

Kabuto struck, but Haku was gone, and the doorway filled with bars of ice.

"And you forgot," Haku whispered into Kabuto's ear, and Kabuto turned and found nothing there. "I wasn't a good child at all."

Ice spiraled up from under Kabuto's feet and he jumped just in time, only to find that the ice had disappeared. He was still in the air when it spiked up again right in front of his nose, but Kabuto wasn't as unnerved by the move as Haku had hoped; he used the spike to launch himself back at the doorway instead, and his momentum was enough to crash through the icy bars.

Haku had hidden himself against the wall in a genjutsu, but it wouldn't be strong enough to hide him for long, and he couldn't produce enough ice to keep up the fight for much longer. He let the genjutsu drop and ran for the door (_Kimimaro-kun, please forgive me, please don't stop me_) and Kabuto's hand smashed into his stomach and sent him flying back. He couldn't catch himself and sprawled on the floor, trying to catch his breath as agony twisted through his right arm; then Kabuto was on top of him, pinning him down with a knee on his chest, and blue chakra edged Kabuto's right hand.

"You're quick, Haku-kun," said Kabuto; his hood had fallen back, and the light shone off his glasses. "But your timing is all wrong... I'm so sorry it has to end this way," and his hand came down.

It jarred against bone - but not one of Haku's.

"Kimimaro-kun? What are you doing?" Kabuto said, and Haku stared at the strange sword that was holding off Kabuto's hand. "We need to get rid of this little problem and -"

"Enough," Kimimaro said. "We're leaving now."

"But - the Kages," said Kabuto, sounding as confused as Haku felt. "We have to kill them - it's an order from Orochimaru-sama, you can't refuse."

"Your fight has been too much of a disturbance," Kimimaro said dispassionately. "There's no time. We're leaving." He twisted the boney sword up and forced Kabuto off Haku's chest; Haku scrambled back and sat up, poised to make seals if necessary.

Kabuto glanced between Haku and Kimimaro, calculating. Then he smiled, stood up, and dusted off his cloak. "Just as you say," he said. "If you'll allow me, I'll clean up here and we can be -"

"If you try to harm Haku again, I'll bring only your head back to Orochimaru-sama," said Kimimaro.

Kabuto's smile fractured for an instant before it smoothed out. He said, "Of course. Let's hurry, then," and the two of them were gone.

Haku breathed in deeply, raggedly, with amazement that he was still breathing; then he leaped up, staggered briefly, and ran after them, his arm protesting with every step.

The hall outside was empty, but Haku heard shouting and crashing to his left and turned that way. Another hall along and there were ANBU and medics on the floor, groaning but alive, and spikes of bone along the walls, and a flash of white hair going around the corner - "Kimimaro-kun, wait! Please wait!'

There was no sign of Kabuto when Haku turned the corner, but Kimimaro spun in the midst of bone blades, knocking aside the ANBU and chuunin trying to stop him. Haku dodged between the bones as the last of the shinobi collapsed, clutching their knee; Kimimaro turned to go and Haku said "Wait, please," and reached for his hand, lacing his fingers with Kimimaro's. "Don't go - you don't have to go back to Orochimaru, you can stay here. I'll vouch for you, it'll be fine. You can meet my friends when they come home, I know they'll like you, even Sasuke - please, stay here, you don't have to leave..."

For a moment Kimimaro's fingers tightened around Haku's, his skin burning hot as if with a fever. "I'm glad that I could meet you again," he said, and smiled for the first time that Haku could remember, small and sweet. "Take care, Haku."

Yelling echoed from further down the hall, and Kimimaro's hand slipped from Haku's and he was gone.

Haku took a single step after him; his legs shook and he had to stop, leaning against one of the bone spikes that Kimimaro had left behind. He was still leaning on it when a single ANBU in a crow mask came running down the hall. "Did you see anyone suspicious pass this way?" he asked.

"Yes," Haku said, "but I'm not sure which way he went - it was a few minutes ago..."

The ANBU glanced briefly across the hallway and the incapacitated shinobi, and through the mask's eyeholes Haku could see red eyes, the pupils surrounded by three black tomoe. Sharingan, but more advanced than Sasuke's... "Excuse me," Haku said, "but - are you Sasuke's brother?" All Haku knew about Sasuke's brother he had learned from Naruto's attempts to explain why Sasuke never talked about him, which, in the way of Naruto's explanations, had eventually come down to, "Uh, it's just kind of complicated?"; Haku had been curious about him ever since, but now that he was in front of Haku, Haku could only think of trying to distract him for a few moments.

The ANBU's eyes focused on him, and Haku crushed the instinct to flee. "Yes, I'm Itachi," the ANBU said. "You're one of Sasuke's friends - Haku? He's mentioned you a few times."

"Ah, yes, that's me..."

"It's good to meet you - I'm sorry that we haven't been able to meet before."

"Oh, no, I understand, I'm sure you must be very busy in ANBU," Haku said, smiling. "I'm glad that we could meet now - perhaps once Sasuke is back, we could all talk again together?"

"Yes, that sounds like a good idea," said Itachi. "Please excuse me for now, Haku-kun, I'm afraid I have to work."

"Of course, don't let me keep you - I should go back to my room, I think."

Itachi bowed slightly and vanished; after a few moments, Haku let his smile fade, and began to try and work out the quickest way to his hospital room.

* * *

><p>Ibiki collared Haku as he was returning to the room and took him directly for questioning about Kimimaro's escape. Haku gave as many details as he could, but it still took a long time; Ibiki wasn't satisfied until finally someone came in and told him that there had been no casualties other than the three ANBU guarding Kimimaro, and that Kimimaro and Kabuto had successfully escaped. Only then would he allow Haku to go, with a grudging injunction to "get some rest, we'll need to talk to you again tomorrow."<p>

It was already tomorrow, in a technical sense, but Haku was grateful for a break. The hospital was still busy getting itself back into order, and it was easy enough for him to slip out rather than return to his room; he'd had enough of the hospital, for now.

When he opened the door to Naruto's apartment, it was dark, of course, though a little bit of the predawn light seeped through a window. He went in, slipping off his sandals. The faint scent of old ramen hung in the air, as it always did; no matter how much Haku aired the apartment out, the smell never seemed to go away, but for once it made Haku smile rather than irritating him. The smell of ramen and the scattered mess Haku could see in the rest of the apartment were both comfortingly familiar. All the scene needed was for Naruto to come crashing in, shouting about his latest mission...

But there was no Naruto, banging about in the kitchen and bragging. No Sakura, scolding Naruto to eat better and trying to hide her laughter at his stories. No Sasuke, making harsh remarks even as he helped sort out Naruto's attempts to cook.

Haku crouched down, heedless of the open door, and wrapped his arms around himself as best he could. "Please come home soon," he whispered. "Please hurry and come home..."

_And please make it back safely, Kimimaro-kun._


	9. Birthday Surprises

**Author's Note: **_I swear I'm really working on the main AU, but - er - drunk Anko was very insistent... Please enjoy, and I'll try to have the next chapter up soon! Comes after "Recruitment" and before "ANBU at Work."  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>Birthday Surprises<strong>

Anko had gotten plenty of ribbing from the rest of the village about her "baby boyfriend," and laughed it off every time. Sure, she liked them on the younger side - plenty of stamina, usually willing to experiment, and anyone who'd made it to sixteen as a shinobi had generally gotten the teenage stupid out of their system early on, so the chances of drama about "You killed them _how_?" and "Wait, you fucked someone else yesterday?" were low. Nothing wrong with having a type. She was a little less certain about the "boyfriend" part, but on the other hand, she didn't go to the trouble of kicking her friends' asses to get a team together for just anyone, so she tended to let that slide.

Then Friday afternoon happened. Not having anything better to do, she'd gone upstairs to pester the bratty little brother, and out of nowhere Sasuke had said, "Are you going to do anything for Itachi's birthday next week?"

"His birthday?" Anko had said, thinking _oh shit_. Were they at the birthday present stage already? Had she even told Itachi when her birthday was yet? She liked to wait till her birthday and get a present, then get out before the other person's birthday rolled around again, but damnit, Itachi was so conveniently located - maybe she could bite the kunai this one time and get him cheap flowers or something...

"Yeah, he's turning fourteen."

The same gutpunched feeling she got whenever she broke the wrong door down had smacked into her. "Wait, what?"

"He'll be fourteen," Sasuke had said, staring at her as if she were the stupidest person he'd ever met, which one, he hung out with _Uzumaki Naruto_, but two, maybe he was still right, because eight months of cracks about her new favorite toy's age had suddenly made a lot more sense. "I don't care if you do something special or whatever, I just want to know so I can stay at Naruto's."

She'd made some automatic snarky remark that she couldn't remember later, and then she had gotten the hell out of there.

Anko was a woman who prided herself on her ability to cope with stress and shock via the safe, graceful method of the tea ceremony, a skill she'd picked up for a mission years back and which had served her well through the aftermath of numerous other missions. She'd never exactly prided herself on her ability to know when to cut her losses and run, since it was an ability she rarely used, but that afternoon, with her pride already flattened, she cut her losses and ran.

That was how Kurenai came to find Anko in her favorite bar at five in the evening, with a giant bottle of sake in front of her. "Getting started a little early?" Kurenai said, and took the seat next to her. "I didn't think you had any particularly awful missions this week..."

Anko didn't bother responding; she tossed back her latest cup of sake, poured herself more, and then grudgingly grabbed another cup and shoved it over to Kurenai.

"Personal, then," said Kurenai, pouring for herself the very small amount of sake remaining in the bottle. "Is the baby boyfriend giving you trouble, or -"

"He's _thirteen_," Anko wailed into the bar. She had meant to growl the words, but the alcohol had added a little too much whine to her voice. "You _asshole_."

"Yes, he - oh, hell. You really didn't know?"

"I thought he was seventeen, yanno! He fucking looks twenty, then I took off a couple years since he's got that genius reputation..." Anko drained her cup, lifted the empty bottle, and then slammed it down on the bar. "Hey you, get me another one, this size or bigger if you got it!"

The bartender had served Anko enough times not to be bothered; she went into the back, returned with another bottle of the same sake, and plunked it down in front of Anko without a word.

"I'm so sorry," Kurenai said, "I thought - well, everyone thought -"

"That I might as well be Orochimaru," Anko said; she'd already poured herself another cup already, and drank it down. "Well, I guess I am! No thanks to all you jerks. Fuck, none of you could have warned me?"

"Seriously, we thought you knew," said Kurenai, and she reached over to pat Anko's arm. "I certainly did. He's only one of the youngest ANBU captains ever promoted, it isn't that hard to do the math... And he is technically an adult." She deftly slid the bottle of sake away from Anko long enough to pour fresh cups for both of them.

"Adult my ass," Anko muttered. "I oughtta spank him and send him back to the academy. Brat. Idiot. Stupid jerk!"

"Maybe this is something you ought to talk to him about," Kurenai said. "Have you two actually - ah - done anything?"

"No, we haven't fucked, thanks for asking." Anko scowled at her cup, which she could have sworn had been full like ten seconds ago, and grabbed the bottle back from Kurenai. "I thought he was just shy. 'S kinda cute when they're a little shy, yanno?" Actually what she had thought was that Itachi was emotionally repressed beyond belief, which was also kind of cute and fun to break through, sometimes explosively so, but no point trying to explain that to Kurenai; Kurenai's taste ran more to the butch yet comfortable with their feelings type. "Anyway, we've messed around some, but no actual fucking yet. Shit. Maybe that can be his birthday present - oh _hell_, Kurenai, what did I do to deserve this?"

Kurenai wisely chose not to answer that question. Instead she said, "This is definitely something you need to talk about with Itachi."

"Yeah, sure, will do," Anko said. "After this bottle. Maybe."

* * *

><p>Much later that night, as Itachi was returning from whatever mission he'd been on, a hand snaked out of the darkness by the stairs and dragged him into Anko's apartment. Fortunately for Anko, this had happened often enough to Itachi that he only made a token effort to stab her in the throat - he went for the throat too often, it was predictable, she was going to have to train him to try for other vulnerable spots once in a while - and the brief struggle ended up with Itachi on her couch and her on top of Itachi, which was just how she liked it. Had liked it. Damn.<p>

"Good evening, Anko-san," Itachi said. "Is something the matter?"

"Damn right something's the matter, jailbait," Anko said, and pushed him flat on the cushions with her hands on his shoulders. "You didn't tell me you were thirteen!"

Even in the dim light (she really needed to change that light bulb), she could see the faint puzzlement on his face. "I thought you were aware of my age. I do have a - certain reputation..."

"Self-absorbed brat," she said, and wriggled her hips just so until he had the sense to put his hands on them. "You know, _some_ people have better things to do than listen to gossips like Genma and Aoba all day. _Some_ people just like having a good time with a cute neighbor." She slid her hands down to open up his shirt, and grinned when she felt him start to grow hard. "And some people -" She bent down and nibbled on his collarbone, tasting the salt sweat that wasn't quite as good as blood. "Some people -" One of her needles appeared in her right hand, and she brought its point to rest against the hollow of Itachi's throat, and oh hell, was she about to start that game up with a fucking thirteen-year-old?

Shit.

She vanished the needle back up her sleeve, rolled off the couch, and crashed gracelessly to the floor, sprawling out on her back. "And some people," she said, way too loudly, "are turning into their creepy old teacher!"

Itachi leaned over and looked down at her. "My apologies, Anko-san," he said, "I wasn't trying to deceive you."

"Some people are also too fucking polite," Anko informed the ceiling, "and are gonna get my foot up their ass if they don't tone it down. Did I tell you I'm drunk? Because I'm pretty drunk right now, yanno. You have driven me to drink, and I never let cute neighbors drive me to drink."

"Perhaps I could make you some tea," said Itachi, standing up from the couch.

"I don't want any goddamn _tea_, sit your ass down here. Yeah, on the floor, why not, it's a pretty good floor, I keep it clean and everything." Hell, she really was drunk; maybe she shouldn't have gone for that fourth bottle, even though she'd been sharing with Kurenai since the second one.

Itachi obediently sat down next to her. She grabbed his ponytail and yanked him down to lie beside her, and they stayed that way in silence for a few minutes as Anko stared up at the ceiling. It was a decent ceiling, never leaked, only a couple of little cracks, didn't need dusting or anything, but it suddenly occurred to her that it might be too thin. Maybe she should get Sasuke some earplugs, just in case of emergencies or something. Sexy emergencies. Oh for fuck's sake, couldn't she think about anything else?

"Anko-san - if you're worried that I'm inexperienced, I -"

"If you tell me you're a virgin I'm going to feed you to a fucking snake!"

"... I'm not a virgin."

"Good," Anko said, "my day's finally looking up." She hooked one leg over Itachi's and rolled over to find him watching her. He had such pretty eyes when he didn't have the sharingan on...

She sighed and said, "Look, I'm only a little bit freaked about the age thing. If Konoha's stupid enough to slap a forehead protector on you and call you a grown-up, fine, whatever. But your little bro seems to think we're at the point we should be getting each other birthday presents, and on top of the whole thing where I was a chuunin before you even went to the academy? That's kinda got me spooked."

"So - this is Sasuke's fault," Itachi said, with the hint of a smile behind his usual blank expression.

"Yeah." She almost added, _This is why good ANBU don't have families_, but Itachi really didn't have any family besides the brat, plus like everyone else with two good ears she'd heard the rumors about the part Itachi might have played in the Uchiha incident, and that was a minefield she would _never_ be drunk enough to step in. Instead she inched a little closer, draped an arm across his chest, and said, "In the spirit of total drunken honesty, I'm gonna be twenty in October, I don't do faithful, I don't do mushy, and you already have a pretty good idea of how I like to play. Any of that a deal-breaker for you, jailbait?"

Itachi took his sweet time answering, but finally said, "No. I like to spend time with you; it's - relaxing."

"No one has _ever_ told me that before." She might have been offended, but jounin and ANBU found weird ways to deal with stress - hell, all you had to do was look at Kakashi or Gai to figure that one out. Playing knife and obedience games with an older woman wasn't all that bad, really, unless - oh, no way. "Wait, this isn't some kind of creepy mom thing, is it?" she said. "Because like _hell_ am I gonna play mommy -"

"No!" Itachi shut his eyes, and for a moment he looked so young and vulnerable that Anko wanted to run right back to the bar and drink until she couldn't be held responsible for her own emotional safety, let alone anyone else's. "I don't - I've never thought of you as - as family. That isn't it."

"Okay, okay, just checking," Anko said. "Relax a little, will you? Hey. Seriously. Relax." She reached up and tugged his forehead protector off, which at least got him to open his eyes and look at her again. "That's better - hey, so you're saying you like me, huh?"

Itachi blinked. Shit, he was _so_ cute sometimes. "I - yes, I suppose so."

"Well, then you're in luck," she said, grinning, and rolled over on top of him. "Because I like good-looking young men with greasy hair -"

"I just got back from work."

"Yeah, but it's _always_ like that. Where was I - right, who are great cooks and live really close to me and apparently have no clue how emotions work. Guess it's meant to be."

"Anko-san, do you remember what you've said when you're drunk?" he said.

"Word-perfect," she said. "I have made so much money off certain idiots at the bar that way." She leaned down for a kiss and bit his lower lip till she tasted copper. Mmm. "Why, having second thoughts? And here I was about to ask if you wanted your birthday present a little early..."

"No, thank you," he said, with slight difficulty as she wouldn't stop chewing on his lip. "I like the - anticipation."

"Really," said Anko, trailing her fingers down his neck and along his collarbone, and when he nodded, she rolled off him and sprawled out comfortably again. "Your loss! And you're gonna know just what you missed out on in - uh -"

"Five days."

"In five days," she said. "Tell the brat he'd better spend that night at his buddy's after all - 'night, jailbait." She snuggled into her nice, comfy floor, closed her eyes, and cheerfully went to sleep.

* * *

><p>The floor was a lot less comfortable the next morning, but on the other hand, Anko still had a conveniently-located, good-at-cooking, bad-at-human-emotions boyfriend who also turned out to be great at massaging away hangover headaches, so she figured that in the end, she'd still gotten a pretty good deal.<p> 


	10. Adventures in Solitude

**Author's Note: **_Sorry that it's taken me so long to update - well, at all! Things have been a little hectic, but I hope that even if it continues to take me a while to get to the main AU *grumble mutter stupid Kishimoto, always jossing me grumble* I'll be able to have more side stories up soon! Thank you for your patience and for sticking with me! This story takes place within the first year of the timeskip, and the scenes are in chronological order.  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>Adventures in Solitude<strong>

Sakura wrote lots of letters, at first. Short ones to her parents, because they weren't really interested in medicine and didn't understand shinobi terminology at all, and she didn't want them to worry. Long ones to Haku and Ino-chan, who did understand, and who wrote wonderful letters back, encouraging her (with insults, in Ino-chan's case) and giving her advice and all the news. Short ones to Naruto, because she wasn't sure how well he could actually read (besides stolen scrolls with high-level forbidden techniques, apparently); it took him ages to write back, but at least all his letters were long, full of bragging and terrible spelling and ridiculous stories that made Sakura either smile or wish Naruto were there so she could punch him. And long letters to Sasuke-kun, of course, even if sometimes when she started to write one she froze up, hearing him shout at her again - _Go ahead and run away, coward! Spineless, weak, useless_ - but she would make herself remember the day she and Naruto had left, the way Sasuke's hand had clutched her dress as if he'd never let go, and then she could write again.

Sasuke-kun was as bad about writing back as Naruto - maybe one letter from him to every five or six of hers, not that she was _counting_ - and his letters were always brief and unemotional, usually about training or particularly annoying missions or Kakashi-sensei's weirdest excuses for being late. But somewhere in each of them he'd write, _Too bad you weren't here_, and every time she read those words she felt an odd little aching thrill in her chest. Sasuke-kun definitely wasn't the type who would say _I miss you_, he was just too cool for that (_Too stuck-up, you mean!_ shouted an angry voice inside her head), but _Too bad you weren't here_ was pretty much the same thing, wasn't it?

So she'd read the words again, and hug the letters to her chest, and then Tsunade-sama would yell at her to concentrate on her studies.

Of course, writing letters took a lot of time, so she probably shouldn't have been surprised the day she woke up after a particularly grueling week of training to build up her chakra reserves and realized that she'd been too busy and tired to write any letters the entire week. At first she couldn't even think about it properly; she just got up and did her morning exercises with the fact sitting in the back of her mind, strange and heavy. It wasn't until they were on the road to the next town, with Shizune-san talking about the proper procedures for evaluating gut wounds, that it really hit her, and when Shizune said, "Don't forget to check the smell of the wound," Sakura stopped right in the middle of the road.

"Sakura? What's wrong?"

"I - I forgot to write everyone this week," Sakura said, her throat squeezing up. "I promised I'd write every day and I f-forgot..."

"I'm sure your friends will understand," Shizune said, patting her shoulder. "You were busy, after all - you can write them tonight and explain."

"But I _forgot_." She could feel tears coming to her eyes and oh, this was so embarrassing, but she couldn't help it, she felt _awful_. "I promised Sasuke-kun and Haku-san and I let them down!"

"It's fine, let's just keep going -"

Sakura burst into tears.

Tsunade had crossed her arms, looking impatient at the delay, but now she uncrossed them and said, "All right, looks like we'll be taking a little break - don't worry, Shizune, it's not as if we have anywhere urgent to be." She put a hand on Sakura's back and guided her to the side of the road so they could sit down on the grass, in the shade of some old trees. "Calm down, girl, and tell me why a couple of teenage boys can't live without a letter from you every day."

Sakura tried to wipe her eyes, but it was useless, just like trying to explain to Tsunade-sama would be, because of course she couldn't tell Tsunade-sama why it was so awful for her to have left Sasuke all alone with his brother. "It - it's just that I _promised_," she said, sniffling, "and I can't - I can't break promises to Sasuke-kun, he's my teammate, he's counting on me!" She remembered his face when they'd left and more tears came. "He's going to be so disappointed -"

"Ssh, ssh, relax," Tsunade said. She rubbed Sakura's back a bit awkwardly. "It was going to happen eventually, you know."

"Eh?"

"It isn't possible to go through life without letting someone down." Tsunade sighed, scrubbing her hands absent-mindedly on her jacket. "You can try and try your best, but there's always going to be a time when you just can't help someone, for whatever reason, and you can't wear yourself out trying. Sometimes you have to let someone deal with problems on their own... It's better that way, I think. How can you rely on people who can't rely on themselves? A team has to be able to trust each other, and that means trusting in yourself, too."

Sakura sniffled again. "But it's not - it's not the same, I want to help but I just forgot -"

"Well, it's better to forget a letter or two now," Tsunade said, "and get it out of the way, so you don't let your team down later when it really counts. Shizune's right - you can write your friends tonight, and I'll bet you that they understand."

After a minute, Sakura said, "Okay." She wiped her eyes again, and this time no fresh tears appeared. "I'm sorry, Tsunade-sama, I didn't mean to slow us down..."

"Eh, I wanted to rest my feet a bit anyway." Tsunade smiled at her. "But we'd better get moving again - and speaking of things you don't want to forget, you can start by telling me the names of all the bones in the hand."

They got up and took to the road again as Sakura began reciting, and that night when Sakura sat down to write her letters, she didn't let herself feel guilty at all.

* * *

><p>The worst part about training with Jiraiya, Naruto decided, was definitely that Jiraiya never let him make any friends. It wasn't like Naruto was going to give away any secrets or anything! He was super good at keeping secrets, after all; he could even keep secrets from Itachi, that was like Hokage levels of secret-keeping, and he hadn't told any to Sakura-chan or Haku or Gaara either, no matter how tempting it got. And he wasn't going to get into any real fights and attract attention, either, because that'd just be dumb. He didn't want to get caught by those Akatsuki people; he just wanted someone to talk to who wasn't a perverted old lech.<p>

After like the tenth time Jiraiya hauled him away from someone he'd just met, Naruto dug his heels in. "What's the matter with you, huh?" he said. "I was just trying to find someone to hang out with! Why's that a crime all of a sudden?"

Jiraiya simply looked at him. "Naruto," he said, "everyone you've tried to hang out with looks like Sasuke."

"Huh? No way! There's no way that -" Uh, well, okay, that kid he'd just been talking to had maybe looked a little like Sasuke, but just because he had black hair - that didn't mean anything. Lots of people had black hair! Not hanging out with black-haired people would be, like, discrimination or something. "Maybe a couple of them, kinda," he said. "But it's not like -"

"All of them, Naruto." Jiraiya sighed. "They've all looked like Sasuke. Black hair, black eyes, faces like they've spent their whole lives with a stick up their ass... Kid, I know you miss him, but it's not healthy to get a fixation like that. Anyway, you should be concentrating on your training! C'mon, let's hit the forest and get some work done."

Naruto muttered something about how Sasuke didn't look _that_ stuck-up, although he sort of did sometimes, and they went off to train.

It was still bugging Naruto that night, though, and he rolled around in bed restlessly. Of course he missed Sasuke; they'd hung out all the time for years, it'd be way weirder if he didn't miss Sasuke. And it wasn't like he didn't miss Sakura-chan and Haku, too, because he totally missed them just as much as he missed Sasuke! The world wasn't as pretty without Sakura-chan in it, especially since stupid Jiraiya scared off all the pretty girls or went drinking with them, and Haku was just _cool_ and smart and always knew the right things to say, which Naruto only ever seemed to manage to do by accident.

He missed Gaara, too, sort of - it was nice not having to worry about sand all the time, but Gaara was way better at controlling it now and Sasuke had been right, Gaara wasn't so bad really, just messed up because of his stupid dad and Shukaku. And Naruto definitely missed Itachi's cooking, but he wasn't sure if he missed actual Itachi or not, because Itachi was always really nice and patient with him and stuff, but then there was that whole murdering-all-the-other-Uchiha thing, which was just weird when Itachi could be so kind.

Huh. He had more people to miss than he'd realized, and that wasn't even counting Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei and that crazy Anko, and Kiba and Shikamaru and everyone... It was kind of a nice feeling, knowing that he had so many people to miss, some of whom probably missed him, too, but it didn't really help him when they were all back in Konoha (or Suna, or wherever that old bat Tsunade was dragging Sakura to), and letters just weren't the same.

All right, that settled it - he'd just go and try one more time to make a new friend tomorrow, and this time he'd pick someone who wasn't like Sasuke at all, and then the pervy sage couldn't complain!

Satisfied with his plan, Naruto bounced once on the bed, rolled over, and fell asleep.

He started off the next day by finding a ramen stall, working on the principle that Sasuke hardly ever ate ramen of his own free will and therefore Sasuke-like people wouldn't be hanging around at ramen stalls. After that, it was just a matter of being stealthy and watching everyone who stopped by to find the ones who were the least like Sasuke.

An hour passed, and maybe it was Naruto's luck, or maybe it was just something about the town, but everyone who came by that ramen stall seemed to look like Sasuke. Same eye shape, or black hair, or the same grumpy face, or the same elegant eyebrows (wait, since when did he start thinking about that jerk's eyebrows so much), or the same jawline... Naruto was about ready to give up and just get some pre-training ramen when the perfect person sat down.

Hair: a bright shiny blond, laying all flat and sleek. Eyes: wide and light green, definitely nothing like Sasuke's, with small fuzzy blond eyebrows above them. Face: round and pudgy, kinda like Chouji's, and Chouji was about as opposite to Sasuke as you could get (in a good way, though, Naruto decided, trying to be fair to them both). Expression - well, okay, the guy looked kinda grumpy, but in a totally different way from Sasuke's grumpiness, and he lightened up some when the cook took his order.

Yes! This was Naruto's chance! He waited a minute, then stole the stool next to his target - uh - soon-to-be new friend - and said, "Hey!"

"Um - hi," the other boy said.

He looked a little nervous (definitely un-Sasuke-like, score!), so Naruto gave him his biggest grin and said, "I'm new here, yanno - what's the best ramen they got?"

"Oh, well, I really like their shoyu ramen best," the boy said, starting to smile back. "They're famous for their special seafood ramen, though, but I don't like seafood all that much so I don't get it."

"Cool, I'm gonna try that - thanks!" Naruto waved at the cook. "Hey miss, three bowls of special seafood ramen, please! Say, what's your name?"

Before the boy could answer, the cook put a bowl of ramen in front of him and said, "Hi, Miharu! How's your big brother doing?"

Miharu scowled. "He's _horrible_."

Naruto's grin slipped a little bit.

As Miharu split his chopsticks and began to stir his ramen angrily, Naruto said, "Er, so - you have a big brother, huh?"

"I wish I didn't," Miharu muttered. "He's evil. He gets away with all kinds of awful stuff, and no one ever says anything! And he's always saying, 'Oh, I'm just trying to look out for you, Miharu,' but it's a load of crap, I don't think he cares at all..."

Naruto didn't bother to protest when Jiraiya showed up to drag him away. Some things, he thought gloomily, were just fate.

* * *

><p>Jiraiya had made peace with his age, could call himself old without a twinge of regret, but there was something about trying to ride herd on a twelve-year-old genin that was making him feel genuinely old. Naruto was all over the place - harassing him for techniques, running around "exploring," constantly bouncing with energy. Nothing at all like Minato had been when he was - well, never mind that - and if Jiraiya felt like being honest, it wasn't even much like Naruto had been on their last trip. Sure, Naruto was an energetic kid, but this was his regular energy times ten, and in addition to making Jiraiya feel old, it was a bit - well, the kid was obviously overcompensating because he missed his friends, but it was still annoying. Reminded him of trying to train three kids at the same time.<p>

At least Jiraiya had been younger when he'd been looking after three brats at once - oh, but he wanted to think about them even less than he wanted to remember Minato, didn't want to see Yahiko's grin or Nagato's steadfast determination in Naruto and think of the hard deaths they would have had, lost in the never-ending wars of Hidden Rain. That was what truly made Jiraiya feel old; to look at Naruto and only see his failures. Better not to think of them at all, and just concentrate on keeping Naruto out of as much trouble as possible, which was a full-time job all by itself. (Too bad the kid had none of Konan's grace - that much was safe to think.)

He had hoped that a full day of working on the super-sized rasengan would wear Naruto out, but it was an old fool's hope. Not ten minutes after Jiraiya had collapsed into the inn's rickety bed (and see if he ever stayed at this place - uh - whatever it was called - again), Naruto's voice rose out of the dark. "Hey, pervy sage -"

"What?" _Please let him just want a snack, please, please, please..._

"Did you ever like Orochimaru?"

Oh, this was going to be an interesting night. "Well, we were teammates," Jiraiya said. "We were too different to really get along, I suppose, but - yes, I liked him. When he wasn't being a snotty know-it-all, he could be a good friend. Until he wasn't."

"No, I meant - did you ever, um, yanno, _like_ him? Like-like him?"

Shit. Jiraiya was definitely, definitely too old for this. "Now, Naruto, you know that boys like girls and girls like boys and sometimes other girls, and that's how it works -" _And don't make me go into any details, damnit, or Tsunade'll punch me into next year for "corrupting the youth."_ "- so no, of course I didn't, er, you know..." He shoved down an old memory - it had been at a bar! They'd both been drunk! It had been in the noble cause of seducing a really hot woman with slightly odd tastes! - and said, "So I don't want to hear anything else about, uh, that kind of thing!"

"But girls can like other girls and that's okay, so it's okay if a guy likes another guy, right?" Naruto said. "I mean, Haku liked that Zabuza guy a whole lot, so -"

"Yes, but Haku-chan is a girl."

"No, Haku's a boy," said Naruto.

"Er - are you absolutely certain about that?"

"Yeah, sometimes he drags me to the public baths so -"

"Okay, okay, I get it." Jiraiya sighed and sadly crossed Haku off his "wait till they're eighteen" list. "Wait, that's not the point! The point is, why would you even ask if I liked Orochimaru like - like -" _Don't think about that time at the bar, don't think about that time at the bar, don't think about how soft his hair felt in your hands -_ "Don't just ask people things like that!"

"I was just _wondering_, geez," Naruto said. "'Cause I was thinking, Sasuke's my best friend so of course I like him a lot, but sometimes I think that maybe I like him even more than Sakura-chan... But I also still really like Sakura-chan 'cause she's super pretty and awesome, but she's always liked Sasuke a lot, and he - well, I guess he likes her okay, it's kinda hard to tell with him, yanno? And Sakura-chan likes Haku a lot too, but I dunno if she likes him more than she likes Sasuke or not, it's totally confusing... So I was kinda wondering if your team was like that, too, like, is this normal or what?"

_Absolutely not_, Jiraiya wanted to say, but all his failures had sprung upon him at once and forced him into silence. His team had split apart, but not from love; death had torn from each other the children he'd trained. What did Jiraiya know about how a team should be?

"No," he finally said. "No, I guess we weren't much like that."

"Oh." Jiraiya heard the other rickety bed creak as Naruto bounced on it, and then Naruto said, "Well, it doesn't matter anyway! 'Cause Sasuke's always going to be my best friend and I'm always going to like Sakura-chan and we're all going be teammates first, yanno, so whatever else happens, we'll still look out for each other and stuff... And I'm going to get super strong so I can protect them from - um, from anything, yeah! And we'll always, always be a team, no matter what - right, pervy sage?"

"Sure, kid," Jiraiya said, his voice thick - he was tired, that was all, he was tired, he'd had a long day. "Sure you will be. Now go to sleep, all right?"

"Yeah, yeah..."

As Naruto's snores floated through the darkness, Jiraiya thought that in the end, there was nothing that could make a man feel old like lying to a kid who didn't know any better.

* * *

><p>Tsunade had let Shizune handle Sakura's basic training in poisons and antidotes, but Sakura was as quick a study in those as she had been in everything else, and Tsunade soon took over in order to keep pace with Sakura. She wasn't particularly surprised, then, when Sakura looked up from the temporary lab set-up and said, "It looks like one of the common poisons from Sand, but it's been altered to work more swiftly, and to affect the internal organs, too, not just the nervous system."<p>

"Good, good," Tsunade said, waiting.

"This - this is the poison that was used on the Kages, isn't it?"

"Yes. Well-done, Sakura."

Sakura looked like she'd been slapped instead of complimented, staring back down at the beakers and pipettes. "But the internal damage - Master, there's no way you could have reversed it all, for as long as they were poisoned! M-maybe for the Kazekage, he would have been more resilient because he was younger, but for the Hokage..."

"That's right," Tsunade said gently. "I did what I could, and it helped that the hospital had all my old work from the war with Suna to use till I got there, but I couldn't repair it all."

"Then - the Hokage..."

"He has a good couple of years left in him, I'd say." How easily the words came, Tsunade thought, as if she were talking about any patient, not her own teacher. "I asked him to send me a message, so Jiraiya and I can come back in time, and then - then they'll be choosing a new Hokage, I suppose. Hatake, maybe - he was a student of the Fourth, did he ever tell you that? Probably not, he's not exactly the type to open up about the past. Or maybe someone else, I don't know who the council's been keeping their eyes on lately..."

"You could be the next Hokage," Sakura said.

Tsunade laughed, but stopped when she saw Sakura's expression. Oh hell, the girl was serious. "I'm not interested in being the Hokage," she said. "Like I told Sasuke, I hate politics, and I hate paperwork even more - that's most of a Kage's job right there, paperwork and politics. I haven't even lived in the damn village for years - there's not a chance they can rope me into it."

"But you're really strong," the girl said earnestly. "And smart, and a great medic, and people really respect you, I could tell that at the hospital..."

"It's not my dream," Tsunade said, her patience growing thin. "It's a job for some fool who loves Konoha more than sense."

"Well," Sakura said, "if that's what they're looking for, maybe they'll pick Naruto to be the next Hokage."

"That brat will be Hokage over my dead body!"

Sakura looked up from the lab equipment and grinned; too late, Tsunade saw the trap she'd walked right into. "So it does matter to you! Who the Hokage will be, I mean."

"Of course it matters," Tsunade grumbled. "You think I want some idiot in charge of my home village? That doesn't mean I'm going to jump at the chance to stick my head in that particular noose." But she could see that she wasn't getting through to Sakura at all; the girl clearly thought that suggesting Tsunade for the next Hokage was the most brilliant idea in the world.

Shizune had used every trick in the book, subtle and unsubtle, to keep Tsunade's alcohol consumption down for the last few months (_think of the example you're setting for Sakura!_ had been a frequent weapon in that war), but that night Tsunade went and got herself stinking drunk. She drank, and drank, and finally she was drunk enough that she held her necklace - her grandfather's necklace - in front of her eyes, letting it swing back and forth in a pretty, shiny blur.

Hokage Tsunade. What a joke that would be. That was a dream for little boys who didn't know the price they'd pay for dreaming (but Dan had been no little boy and still he'd paid, cursed because she'd put her faith in him and her necklace around his neck). Catch her falling for that nonsense - no, they'd never catch her. She didn't want to be Hokage, she wasn't going to be Hokage, and that was that.

But how bright Grandfather's necklace shone, even in the bar's dim light; how bright Nawaki and Dan's dreams still shone in her memory, with a will that wouldn't die...

* * *

><p>Orochimaru had a tendency towards hoarding, a habit which went poorly with Kabuto's need to keep everything in perfect, organized order. It was not Kabuto's place to criticize Orochimaru, however, and in truth Kabuto rarely felt the need to complain; Orochimaru never kept anything worthless, after all, even if it might be some time before the worth of any particular item revealed itself.<p>

Still, Kabuto felt that he had to draw the line when he was sorting through a drawer and a book of matches fell out of a scroll. He inspected the packet carefully, but the matches had all been torn out, there were no traces of any obvious secret messages or codes, and he didn't recognize the name of the bar, which meant that it wasn't from any of the locations where he or Orochimaru occasionally met their spies. It was worthless, in other words, and there was no reason for it to have been hidden away in a scroll of some value.

He held it up and said, "Orochimaru-sama, is there really a need to keep this?"

Orochimaru glanced at the matchbook for just long enough to read the bar's name. "Of course," he said, a trace of irritation in his voice. "There are times when a match is more useful than wasting chakra on a fire technique, after all - more often than not, really. And the things are free. Give it here."

"But there aren't -"

"Don't make me repeat myself, Kabuto," and when Kabuto had handed the matchbook over it disappeared into Orochimaru's sleeve; the replacement arms did not have quite the grace of those that Orochimaru had lost, but they served well enough, and Kabuto felt a flicker of pride in his handiwork. "There - one must always be prepared. Now, have you found anything of use in those Kaguya clan scrolls I acquired yet?"

Kabuto made no more protests, but he kept the name of the bar in mind for future inquiries.


	11. Getting Practice

**Author's Note: **_Before you get too excited, I am sorry to say that the main AU is still on hiatus while I work on my Ph.D (and try to single-handedly reboot the Marathon fandom), but this particular side-story was written as a present for my BFF in last year's Naruto Fic Exchange, and it was high time I got around to cross-posting it here, even if it is just a short piece of fluff. I can't make any promises about further side-stories or the rest of "(Nice Dream)," but I can promise I haven't forgotten about it, and if I get to a point where I feel certain that I won't continue it, I'll at least summarize the rest of the plot and post that for you all._

_... anyway, that's a heavy enough intro for a piece of fluff! This takes place during the end bit of chapter 10, and is about Sakura, Ino, and Haku._

* * *

><p><strong>Getting Practice<strong>

Ino groaned as she flopped down in the soft, cool grass of the training field. "Ugh, it is way too hot to train," she complained, "and I'm bored anyway, we've been sparring for like, hours. I want a drink..."

Sakura wiped sweat from her forehead, privately agreeing. Training in the heat was the worst, and sparring got so repetitive... "It's not even noon yet, though," she said. "We should do at least a few more rounds, or we're never going to improve."

"Honestly, Sakura, I don't know what's gotten into you lately," Ino said. "You just want to train all the time, it's so dull..."

"I want to get better, that's all!" Sakura crossed her arms and stared down at Ino, but the blonde made no move to get up. "Maybe it's fine for you to slack off with your teammates all the time, but if I don't practice, I'll never keep up, especially since Kakashi-sensei keeps disappearing on us." If she ever got her hands on him she was really going to give him a lecture, it was so irresponsible - he just told them to practice with Haku and let Naruto and Sasuke run around with that awful Gaara boy all the time, what kind of teaching method was that?

Haku had been waiting for his next turn to spar with Ino; he said, "It probably is too hot to practice just now - it wouldn't hurt to take a short break, I think. You've both been getting a lot better lately."

"See, Haku-san agrees with me!" Ino said triumphantly as she sat up. "A break's perfect! And then if you have to we can come back later when it's cooler. Think you can live without practicing long enough for a snack break, forehead?"

"Oh, fine." Sakura uncrossed her arms and wiped more sweat from her face. "But it's your treat!"

It took Ino ages to choose a place to take their break, probably because she was being a cheapskate, and by the time she'd turned her nose up at the fifth café Sakura was ready to scream - partly from the heat, partly because guys wouldn't leave them alone. Well, fine, they left Sakura and Ino alone because they had their forehead protectors on and civilians knew better than to mess with their own village's shinobi, even the ones who were still genin, but Haku had already turned down at least three invitations to tea and a couple of other, less polite suggestions. Couldn't Ino just pick a place and let them get off the street and away from all the idiots? The heat had to be going to their heads or something.

"Hey, pretty miss! How about -"

"No!" Sakura yelled at the man who'd just gotten in their way - ew, he was at least fifty, what a creep! - and she stepped in front of Haku, glaring. "Go away and leave us all _alone_!"

The man scowled down at her, but only until he noticed her forehead protector; then his face went pale in a wonderfully satisfying way, and he muttered a hasty apology and scurried away. Sakura punched the air in triumph and turned back to the other two. "Sorry, Haku-san," she said, "I just got - I'm so sick of those guys always bothering you! They don't even take the time to notice you're a boy, what perverts..."

Ino was hiding a laugh behind her hand. "Sure you're not just jealous, forehead?" she said. "I guess it's better to be a boy who looks like a girl than a girl who acts like a -"

"Shut up, pig," Sakura said, elbowing Ino. "It's not like they're falling over themselves to get to you, either!"

"It's fine," said Haku, gently steering them towards the nearest tea shop. "It's all the same to me, really."

"Huh?" Ino gave Haku a funny look and didn't even complain about his choice of tea shop, for which Sakura was grateful; now that she'd cooled down a bit from sparring, she was really thirsty after all, and a little hungry too. "Getting hit on, or being called a girl, or what?"

"Well, I wouldn't mind being left alone," Haku said, "but I don't care very much if people think of me as a girl. I'm still myself - whether I'm a boy or a girl doesn't matter that much to me, and it feels nice to be considered a girl, sometimes."

"That's - a little weird, actually," said Ino as they settled at a table. "But in a cool way! Like, it's really kind of deep if you think about it..."

"Thank you."

Sakura buried her nose in the menu, but she wasn't thinking about what she wanted to order. Haku's words - was that kind of thing possible? To just - not feel like you were a boy or a girl, or feel like you were the other one? It was obvious that Haku could pass as a girl pretty easily if he wanted, since he did already without trying... What would he look like if he really did try to be a girl? Like that time that Itachi-san had tried Naruto's stupid jutsu and looked so beautiful, only more natural, so - oh no, she could feel her face heating up, was she blushing? Menu! She had to focus on the menu! Wait, had Ino just said something? To her? "Sorry, I was trying to decide," she said, "what did you say?"

Ino rolled her eyes. "Pfft, and I thought you were the focused one here," she said, "you were totally just thinking about Sasuke-kun, weren't you? What a waste of time, he's so not worth it - I keep telling you, he's -"

"You don't know him!" Sakura hid her face in the menu again, but this time her face was hot with anger, not embarrassment. She didn't know why Ino had developed such a grudge against Sasuke lately, but she was always saying stuff like Sasuke wasn't worth Sakura's time or that he was too self-absorbed to ever notice anyone else. "You're just mad because Itachi-san's out of town on a mission so you can't try and stalk him!"

"Why don't we order now?" Haku suggested. "And then Ino can tell us her idea again."

"Oh - right," Sakura said, finally noticing the bored waitress standing by their table. "Sorry! Um, Haku-san, you go first, I'm still deciding..."

They suffered through some awkward silence as they waited for their orders, but after the food and drinks arrived, Ino said, "So anyway, what I was trying to tell you earlier is - you remember how my team did a mission with Hinata's the other day?"

"Yes..." Sakura took a big gulp of her drink and bit into the first of the sweet dango she'd ordered.

"Well, Kurenai-sensei was talking to me and Hinata to like, give us advice," Ino said, "and she told us that if we make chuunin and don't burn out or anything, in a couple of years we have to take these special kunoichi lessons."

"About what?" Sakura asked.

Ino giggled into her teacup. "Oh, forehead, you're just so innocent sometimes! You know, lessons about getting information and infiltration - by flirting. And, well, you know! That kind of thing."

Sakura gave up on trying to hide her blush. "So? If we don't have to take them for - for another few years, then wh-what's the big deal?"

"So," Ino said, drawing the word out, "I was thinking - we could go ahead and get some practice in."

"_What_?"

"Practice!" Ino wore an evil smile as she sipped her tea. "You're so hot to train all the time lately, so let's practice something fun for once! Just you, me, and Haku-san, trying out our feminine wiles on each other, learning how to kiss and be flirty, getting a head start so we can blow everyone away at those lessons..."

"No way! That's - that's just -" Sakura looked to Haku for support. "Haku-san, you don't want to - I mean, it's just - it's way too embarrassing, there's no way -" But her inner self was screaming the exact opposite. _Hell yeah, let's do it! Forget Sasuke-kun, I'll kiss the hell out of Haku-san and he'll totally fall in love with me! I'll show Ino-pig how it's done, yeah - hey, even that part could be fun!_

_Shut up_, she told herself.

"They are valuable skills to have," Haku said, simultaneously crushing Sakura's hopes and raising them to new heights. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt, if you really wanted to practice."

"See, Haku-san agrees with me!" Ino said triumphantly as Sakura sputtered. "C'mon, don't get all shy on me now - you know you want to see what it's like, actually kissing someone... And I mean, it's Haku-san! It's not like he's going to take advantage of us or anything - like, we could even just say he's a girl for the afternoon so it doesn't count as kissing a boy, is that okay with you, Haku-san?"

"Hmm..."

Sakura was starting to think that her heart would explode right out of her chest, or that her face was going to burst into flames. Haku looked like he was seriously considering the idea! And she couldn't help it, so was she, now. Just the thought of getting close like that to Haku and Ino, even if it was only for practice - feeling their lips against hers, holding their hands, maybe even saying out loud that they liked each other or feeding each other - it was like her dreams coming true. No, no, this was all wrong - it was Sasuke-kun she liked, she didn't really think about Haku-san (or Ino!) that way!

_Oh yes I do!_

_Shut up!_ Oh, she was getting dizzy - oh, no...

"I think it would be fine," said Haku, smiling. "After we're finished eating, of course."

"Well, yeah," Ino said, "I'm not making out with anyone until I've washed my face, anyway! And we should probably go somewhere more, you know, private - hey, are you okay?"

"You two are both _evil_," Sakura said, her voice slightly muffled by the napkin she was holding under her nose to soak up the trickle of blood leaking out, and Ino just laughed. Sakura was going to make her pay for that later.

After all, it wasn't Ino who used to win all their tickle fights.


End file.
